I’d wanted to fly for as long as I could remember. When I was a kid I used to watch swifts screeching round our house, or see swallows swooping over the summer cornfields and I’d dream of flying too. And then one day, I was up on Hunter’s Hill, when a strange noise filled the air. I looked and an aeroplane appeared over the copse – some sort of biplane, I’ve no idea what kind. It flew so low, its wheels almost brushed the tops of the beech trees and a dozen crows exploded from the branches in panic. I chased after it, like a dog after a stick, running through the waist-high grass of the meadow cheering and whooping. The pilot pulled her round to the east and as he flew away he waved down at me and I waved back. That was the moment I decided that I had to be a pilot. I watched him go, the sound of the engine dying away as he headed toward the horizon. I waved and waved, until my arm ached.
