There was silence, except for the scratching of Biros while we each wrote another cheque, this time for £120 each. These were filed away in a separate neat pile.
‘Do you want a radio?’
‘A radio?’ said Dan thoughtfully. ‘How much is that?’
‘A basic transceiver starts at about £400. I can get you a discount.’ We all looked at each other.
‘Maybe leave the radio ’til later,’ said Sean. ‘But you’d better order your ozee suits, if they’re to be here by the time the plane arrives. I can probably get a deal if you all order together.’ An ozee suit turned out to be a blue Thinsulate-lined zip-up flying overall.
‘Do we really need an ozee suit?’ I asked. ‘Can’t we just wrap up well?’
‘Oh you must have an ozee suit.’
The cheque was for £80.
‘You’ll need to arrange third party insurance, as we’re flying from Ministry of Defence land,’ Sean said, handing out four more photocopied forms. ‘I’ll leave you to do that yourselves.’ The form contained a number of boxes. Alongside the lowest box, containing the highest premium (£80), was a rough cross in blue biro. ‘Of course it’s up to you whether you decide to insure the hull or not. That can get expensive. Right. Now for the loose ends.’
The loose ends consisted of another £72-worth of equipment: two flying charts—a 1:250,000 scale map of East Anglia and a 1:500,000 scale map of the south of England; a perspex ruler graduated in nautical miles in both these scales; a frightening, but impressive-looking gadget like a circular slide rule called a flight course and distance calculator; a log book (which seemed premature, as we did not yet have an aircraft); a blue plastic ring binder entitled CAP 85: A Guide to Aviation Law, Flight Rules and Procedures for Applicants for the Private Pilot’s Licence; and, finally, a slim paperback entitled The Microlight Pilot’s Handbook. This was slimmer and—judging by the ratio of pictures of clouds to diagrams with arrows—considerably simpler than the thick, densely-written text books to which I had been introduced in Africa. The pages started falling out the moment I broke the spine, which somehow seemed to reflect microlighting’s marginalised role in the world of aviation. As the objects mounted, it felt a bit like the first day at school. Except, at £72, rather more expensive.
‘You’ll need to buy a couple of jerry cans each and paint your names on the side. Now, hangarage. I’ll give you a deal for the first six months if you’re happy for me to take people up for trial flights. Shall we say £50 a month? Oh, and finally, you’ll have to join the flying club, of course.’
‘How much is that?’
‘£15. But make the cheque out to the flying club, not to me.’
Enough was enough.
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘I won’t join for the moment.’
‘You have to. Or no flying. It costs the same whether you join now or later.’
Resignedly I reached for my cheque book again. The pain was softened, however, when a few minutes later I was handed a blue credit-card-sized membership card. I slipped it into my wallet. Pleasingly visible for all to read alongside the club name and its winged crest were the words ‘FULL FLYING MEMBER’.
In the car on the way back to London on Sunday afternoon, I examined my jeans and shoes. The new 501s were almost black from a combination of mud, oil and green tree mould. My Chelsea boots were so caked that it was impossible to tell that they had once been suede. Both were ruined.
Mr Watson had arrived in our room at eight, as we slept off mild hangovers from staying up talking to Dan, his sister Seph, who had arrived that day and a couple of friends of his who had come for dinner. ‘Hullo, hullo. Are you up? D’you mind? There’s a fallen tree we need to shift. Shouldn’t take long but needs a couple of pairs of hands. Wonder if you’d like to help? And if you see Dan, tell him. Can’t think where he’s got to—he knew I wanted help. Shall we meet downstairs in fifteen minutes?’ And so, after a hasty piece of toast, we found ourselves, on a cool May morning, in charge of a chain-saw, bill hook, and tractor and trailer. At 10.30 am Lester had left to play the organ in the local church.
We left promptly after lunch. Over the not-quite-defrosted summer pudding, Mr Watson had mentioned some mattresses and a piano that needed shifting. There had been no further talk about arrangements for sharing the Thruster when it arrived: how we would avoid clashing, who would fly it when, how we would pay for it if it got damaged. Mr Watson had issued an open invitation and given us the run of a top-floor flat, if we wanted a summer holiday. Somehow any more formal discussion seemed inappropriate. ‘Nevertheless, I shall draw up an agreement,’ said Richard.
I was still reeling from the decisive turn my life had taken. We had ordered an aeroplane. There was no backing out: it was done. We seemed to have acquired some new friends, albeit of an eccentric and extraordinary kind. It was plain that Mrs Watson ran things, and Dan was friendly and easy-going. But, most of all, it was Mr Watson who had left an impression. He was unlike anyone we had met before. He made doing what you liked look so easy and obvious. He loved Africa, so he had started a business there. He wanted to fly, so he bought a plane. He liked the look of a mansion which everyone else saw as a liability. So he ignored them, and bought it. He answered to nobody except himself, and seemed to have complete control over his life. It was independence of mind of a fierceness that neither of us had encountered before.
That evening Richard, as syndicate administrator, drew up a ‘Contract of Agreement for the Salsingham Syndicate’. It ran to seven pages, and outlined terms of reference, terms of ownership, booking procedures, damage liability, shared expenses, individual expenses, conditions of leaving, priority of use on weekends and holidays, and other areas. ‘Isn’t it a bit formal? Doesn’t it imply we don’t trust each other?’
‘It’s not a matter of trust,’ said Richard. ‘It’s a matter of procedure.’ As Prime Suspect began on the television, I opened a cold Beck’s and settled down with The Microlight Pilot’s Handbook: ‘The advent of the microlight aeroplane has brought flying within the reach of many…’
Most of the time, the aeroplane flies not because of the pilot’s activity on the controls, but despite it.
Wolfgang Langewiesche, Stick and Rudder, 1944.
We had booked two weeks holiday in July for some intensive instruction and were installed in the top floor flat at Salsingham. Now that the idea had sunk in (the commitment of a bank loan had the effect of focussing my mind further), and weekends and holidays were now sorted for the foreseeable future, I was keen to get on and learn to fly as fast as possible. I had tried to book our holiday from the day the Thruster was delivered, but Sean said he needed a few days to assemble the plane, test fly it and generally tighten up any cords and cables which, because it was new, he said, tended to stretch or slacken in the first few hours of use.
It
