BOOMF! Flashback of the week, repeated frequently - it's Friday 2 January 1970; I'm 12, the last day of the school Christmas holidays. My father is seeing a client in south-east London, from memory to do with the extension of Thamesmead. After the meeting we will go and visit Greenwich. It's a beautiful sunny day; there's frost in the air and a light covering of snow. I take with my Christmas presents - two volumes of the Pocket Encyclopaedia of World Aircraft in Colour by Kenneth Munson, published in 1967. As I write these words, I have them both in my hand, here in Jeziorki, allowing me to relive the moment.
I was sitting in a warm corridor outside the room in which my father was having his meeting, reading the books. Full of detail and data and colour illustrations of warplanes - bombers, fighters, attack aircraft, trainers, transport and patrol aircraft - I could not be bored. Soaking up the facts and figures that I can still recall to this day - the engines that powered the planes, their top speeds, their size, their weapon load, time passed rapidly. NATO codenames for the Soviet-bloc fighters and bombers - Fitter, Fishbed, Flashlight, Badger, Bear, Brewer, Mallow, Madge, Cub and Colt - were constant reminders of the Cold War, the ever-present foe.
There was, however, one plane that in particular struck me that day - the North American FJ-4 Fury; somehow I spent more time studying that one - a feeling of anomalous familiarity with its shape, its markings - a plane that first flew in October 1954 and served with the US Navy and US Marines. 'Quantico' spontaneously springs to mind as I look at it.
After my father had finished his meeting, we set off to Greenwich, walking up the snowy hill through the park to the observatory, where I learned about John Flamsteed and Sir William Herschel and the telescopes used by early astronomers, saw the Greenwich Prime Meridian, and then visited the National Maritime Museum, which struck me as being like the nautical section of the Science Museum but on a much larger scale and in a much grander building. Wonderful wooden models of sailing ships with highly detailed rigging and canvas in display cabinets vied for my attention with more modern Dreadnaughts, battleships and destroyers.
A great day out, which imprinted itself upon my memory, often triggered by sunny, snowy days even in wintery Warsaw.
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This time 12 years ago:
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This time 13 years ago:
Sunny, snowy Jeziorki
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2 comments:
Such interesting books! I used to receive similar ones at Easter, having negotiated them as alternative gifts to chocolate. And they are still here, unlike an edible gift. My favourites came from a compendium of civil and military aircraft in use fifty years ago: the DC7 and Lockheed Starliner. The thought of flying somewhere in one of those was intriguing.
I have quite a few of the Blandford colour 'pocket encyclopaedias', sadly not the airliners. I have the Helicopters and Rotorcraft, many of the O.S. Nock railway titles, and some military ones (world's military uniforms, WW1 and WW2 military trucks). I enjoyed the mix of quality colour artwork and detailed written descriptions.
My favourite airliner of the piston age was the Lockheed Constellation (the original one; I think the stretches made to the Starliner's fuselage compromised the original, beautiful, design).
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