Chapter six
When my announcing partner, Toby, died suddenly in 1973 a light seemed to go out. He and I had covered many air shows together, from Abbotsford to Paine Field to Reno to Springbank, Alberta to Terrace and Prince George.
Accompanying Chapter 5 of his life story, Glenn Matthews found this old bit of film footage of the Wing Walk he did. It is shot with an old 8mm camera, so the quality is not ‘digital’. Nonetheless we wanted to share it with you! Enjoy!
(You will need Adobe’s Flash Player installed to view our movies)
{Click on the title to read the entire article}
Chapter five While Toby and I were doing a show at Paine Field in Washington State I was asked by “Gentleman” Joe Hughes to closely watch an addition to his act and to give him my thoughts afterwards. Joe was flying his beautiful Super Stearman with his wing rider Gordon…
In 1961, shortly after arriving out west, I nailed a job with Hacker Press at Abbotsford as Art Director and almost immediately a number of aviation related things happened. I joined the Abbotsford Flying Club just as a decision was being made to hold an airshow and I found myself helping to organize the first event in 1962.
Chapter three Back on civvy street I set about opening a hobby shop in Vancouver, unfortunately on a shoestring. But it was a good way to return to life after the nastiness in England. I made a number of long-term friends through my shop and had some great model flying…
Chapter two
My memories of wartime England consist of damp weather and cold Nissen huts, chipping the ice from the water troughs in order to shave and endless hours of training flights in bloody awful flying conditions. Then too, the food was no great shakes! If you put in a flight of four hours or more you qualified for one greasy fried egg. Such bounty!
{Please click on the title to read the entire story!}
Herewith a condensed version of my life story as it relates to “things aeronautical”.
Chapter one
At age 11, while living with my Grandparents, I would drive my grandmother to distraction by leaping up from the dinner table every time I heard an airplane flying over the house. My Father encouraged my enthusiasm by enrolling me in a model airplane club where I was to hone my skills as a model builder and actually win third place in my first flying model contest. Years later I wound up as President of the Vancouver Gas Model Club and won a number of scale contests.
{Please click on the title to read the entire story!}
