UP IN THE BLUE - ALONE!

Soon it was time for my first solo land-away.

Dunkeswell is a little airfield on the Somerset levels - very easy to find for someone who disliked navigation as much as I did. Take off from Bristol, turn out over Cheddar lake, head for the M5 motorway and follow it down until you spot the Wellington Monument, turn left, and look out for the airfield. The only likely mistake would be getting the wrong airstrip - there were two disused ones close by. Not even an idiot like me could mistake the correct one, though - look for other little aircraft and a clubhouse.

There's something incredibly peaceful about flying alone. Apart from the radio, relayed through your headset, there is no sound but the gentle hum of the engine and the occasional buffeting of the wind. And for most of the time out there over open countryside the radio is quiet - it's only when you need to talk to Air Traffic Control or they need to talk to you that it crackles into life. (Of course, if you have a passenger you hear them through the headset too, but on a solo flight nothing much interrupts the silence. And when I flew in Florida, they didn't use headsets at all, which I found most disconcerting, but that's another story)

Flying alone also really concentrates the mind. Quite apart from keeping a sharp eye out to make sure you're on course, and that there is no microlight - or jet plane! - in your sights, you have to remember to check the pitot heat every 10-15 mins to ensure the pitot tube doesn't freeze up - something else that was totally different in Florida, where it is rarely cold enough to have to worry about such things. At the same time as the peace, I felt truly alive.

Anyway, I made Dunkeswell safely, landed, locked up the plane and went into the clubhouse for a much needed coffee before flying back to Bristol. First land-away safely accomplished - but a bigger challenge still to come - a triangular land-away, . But for today I wasn't going to worry about that. I'd taken a plane away from the airfield on my own and brought it safely back.

Result! And another important step towards getting my licence!

Apologies for the bizarre layout!!!     STRETCHING MY WINGS       EARLY DAYS TO FIRST SOLO   From the exhilaration of that first trial lesson the hard work began - but it was so exciting.  I learned to read what had looked like a mesmerising array of dials, how to put on flaps and keep the plane 'in trim' and so much more.  We did 'steep turns' with the wing at seventy degrees angle to the ground, we did the drill for emergency landings - look for a suitable field, check wind  direction by observing smoke from chimneys etc, don't forget to put in a radio call to alert air traffic control, and so on.  We did stalling practice, which was really scary.  'Stall' is wing stall, not engine stall, and is usually caused by climbing too steeply, so of course, I had to do just that.  We'd climb to 3000 ft and then lift the nose again, more, more, more until we stalled - those minutes  (or seconds, most probably!) I found really nerve wracking. Once I was able to do something to correct that horrible plunge downward I felt much better!   And then of course there were the take-offs and landings.  'Touch and goes' we called them. I'd take off, fly a circuit of the airfield, land, and immediately put on power to take off again.  We'd do five or six of these circuits in succession.  Sometimes we'd pop over to the BAe runway at Filton, cheaper and less busy than Bristol Airport, sometimes we'd fly down to the grass strip at Compton Abbas in Dorset and practise there.  But I have to confess I liked Bristol Airport best, with its lovely long runway and familiar surroundings.  And it was there that I did my first solo.   I knew the time for it was approaching fast, and tried to prepare myself.  But my tummy churned all the same when, after three or four 'touch-and-goes' one afternoon, my instructor asked: 'OK, do you want to go round on your own?'   My first thought was No!  No!  I don't!   Once I'd taken off there could be no going back - I'd just have to land all by myself.   But I knew if I showed the slightest hesitation he would think I wasn't ready and I'd have to wait for another day. Terry had done his first solo a few days before - I couldn't get left behind!  'Yes, all right,' I said.  'Pull over then,' he said.  I duly pulled over to the nearest holding point.  My instructor spoke to the control tower, telling them he was sending a pupil on first solo, and got out, leaving me alone in the plane.  And the funny thing was I was suddenly quite calm and confident, as if I was in my car.  Take-off came easily to me now.  I flew a perfect circuit, turned and called in 'Finals' and concentrated on the heavy workload that is landing.  I came in at just the right height and speed over the A38 and touched down with only the smallest of bounces.  I'd done it!  Been in the air all alone and got back in one piece to tell the tale!  It was one of the most exhilarating moments of my life - and the certificate I was given to prove I'd done it became one of my most prized possessions.    But of course there was still a long way to go to get my licence.  In reality, the adventure had only just begun ....

First, an apology - I have been very busy finishing a new book, a family saga - and so haven't blogged for a while.  More exciting news about this later, on my home page.  But at last, here I am again.  I'm taking a break from my stories of life as a real-life Heartbeat Wife to tell how I came to learn to fly and gain my Private Pilot's licence.  I'm calling it: INTO THE BLUE  Me in the left-hand seat. I'd always wanted to learn to fly.  I'd gone on a 'Pleasure Flight' as they used to be called when on holiday in Scarborough with my sister when I was in my late teens and absolutely loved it.  Before going I was pretty nervous, especially when we got to the airfield and I saw the size of the plane - so tiny! with the wings just about the height of my chest.  But the moment we took off I was hooked, loving the sensation of freedom and the fields cartwheeling under that little tilted wing. It was an unfulfilled ambition, though.  Until my 50th birthday.  Terry, my husband, kept me in suspense about a "surprise present" until the day came.  We were 'going somewhere', and perhaps he'd better explain as I might want 'to wear something suitable'.  When he told me he had booked me a trial flying lesson at Bristol airport I was so excited, and even wondered briefly if the 'something suitable' should be a leather helmet and long scarf ... well, it was late November ...   I settled, however, for trousers and flatties.  At Bristol & Wessex Flying Club I was shown the plane I would be flying - a PA28 - and then given a briefing in a very official looking office.  I must confess I was quite bemused by all the technical terms, explanations of how a plane actually flies, and so much more.  Then my breezy and cheerful instructor took me on a 'walk round', checking fuselage, flaps, etc, and installed me in the 'left-hand seat' - in a plane the captain sits on the left hand side of the cockpit.  He climbed in beside me.  Terry, I should mention, was already installed in one of the two seats behind us.  And then we were on the runway and taking off, the ground gently dropping away beneath us, looking down on treetops, bouncing a little in the turbulence over the wooded area, then turning towards the Somerset levels with Cheddar lake sparkling in the bright sunlight and Glastonbury Tor rising ahead. My instructor, Mike, took off, of course, but once we were over open countryside he invited me to take over.   All he wanted me to do was fly 'straight and level' - which is easier said than done when you've never flown before.  The most magical and scariest words I'd ever heard were 'You have control' .... I had control!  Jeepers!  (Of course, his helping hand was never far away, otherwise I doubt I'd be here to tell the tale). It lasted a bit less than an hour, that first flight, but I was hooked.  And so was my passenger, Terry ....   He'd recently retired from the police force, and so we made the momentous decision .. we were both going to take the lessons we needed to get our private pilot's licences.  And what a decision that was!   It took over our lives, cost us a lot of money, meant we had to spend hours and hours poring over the manuals that taught us about everything from air technical to meteorology, navigation and air law and the etiquette and jargon needed to use the radio to talk to air traffic control, and know it all well enough to pass seven written exams.  There were plenty of times when I wondered what on earth I was doing - such as when I had to set off for my first solo land-away, or when I thought I was lost over the wilds of Wales (I wasn't).  But we never for one moment regretted it.  And I think gaining my licence is the achievement I am most proud of.  Often I was scared to death, but I did it.  (Conversely, Terry relished every moment).  And there were so many adventures along the way! I'll tell you about some of them soon ....

THE ALIENS HAVE LANDED!

 

 

 

 

 

Latest instalment of

 

HEARTBEAT WIFE

 

 

A huge assortment of callers came to our door when we lived in the Police Station in Nailsea.  There were the routine matters - people coming to produce their driving documents and the like, people with queries, people wanting to report a loss - a dog, a watch, a wallet, people wanting to complain about their neighbours or some unseemly going-on. 

 

And there were the phone calls too - one afternoon when Terry was off duty I answered the telephone to be greeted by the words:  'There's a pigeon in my garden and it seems exhausted.  What should I do?'   Feeling unqualified to give her advice, I went out to Terry, who was mowing the lawn, and repeated the conversation.  'Tell her to put the oven on,' was his typically black-humoured reply.  Of course, he was joking - Terry could never be cruel to any living creature - he wouldn't destroy a spider's web or kill a wasp, let alone a pigeon.  On his further instructions, I went back to advise the lady caller that she should put out water and food for it, and leave it alone, and after a rest it would probably go on its way. 

 

Perhaps the most bizarre incident happened, as it so often seemed to, on a Saturday evening.  Terry was out 'on his beat' (or motor cycle, to be more precise) and I had just finished giving my youngest daughter her 10 o'clock feed when there was a ring at the doorbell.  I went to answer it with her in my arms.   And saw the letter box open and a pair of eyes staring at me through it.

 

Now this is perhaps the most difficult bit of my blog.  How to describe the two sisters who lived a few doors from us in Station Road, without being dreadfully un-PC.  I'll try to be kind.  The one was what my mother would have called 'not quite all there', though in retrospect the other was not much better!  It was she who was at our door, and because she was 'vertically challenged' her eyes were level with our letter box.  With some trepidation, I opened the door - bear in mind, it was close on 11 pm.  The little lady wasted no time in telling me why she was calling for help.

 

'There are Martians in the school playing field.  They're directing lazers into my bedroom and they're burning me up!'    (Our houses backed onto what was then Nailsea Comprehensive School grounds)

 

Well, what would you have said?  I tried, without success, to suggest it might be youngsters with torches.   She wouldn't have it.  Definitely Martians.  I tried to convince her they meant her no harm.  She was adamant.  They were trying to kill her.  She could feel the lazer rays scorching her skin, getting right inside her. This idiotic conversation went on for far too long.  It was cold, dark, and I had a young baby in my arms.  Eventually I assured her I would get my husband to investigate and closed the door but for a long while she continued to knock, ring, and shout through the letterbox that she couldn't go home or she would be either exterminated or 'beamed up'.  I had a look through our bedroom window when I went upstairs to put Suzie back to bed - it overlooked the self-same playing fields - and could see nothing whatever.  No car headlights, no torch beams ...  nothing.   

 

Eventually the little lady gave up and went away.  I fully expected her to make a complaint to Terry's senior officers that she had received no help whatever in her hour of need, but to my knowledge that never happened.  Unless of course it did, and was binned ...

 

As I'd like to say to the writers of Heartbeat ....  You couldn't make it up!

 

 

EXCITING TIMES!     I WAS A  REAL LIFE 'HEARTBEAT' WIFE     So many things happened while we living in the little Police Station/House at Nailsea - amusing, sad, downright weird! - that I hardly know where to begin!  And this blog won't be very long because I have had an operation on my hand, and typing is difficult.  So I'll start with a dramatic event!  I'll call it:   REVENGE OF THE HELLS' ANGELS         One Saturday evening there was an accident on the major road involving a car and a motor cycle.  Not so unusual, you might say.  But in this case, the motor cyclist hit by the car was one of a huge group of Hells' Angels.  And they were in no mood to exchange names and addresses and go on their way!  Oh no, not they.  They wanted retribution, and nothing less. Terry, on his BMW, was the first officer on the scene, and spent some hairy minutes trying to calm a vast group of angry bikers (50-70 of them I seem to remember!) and prevent them from lynching the terrified car driver before back-up arrived.  The motorist and his passenger were then taken into custody and taken to Long Ashton Police Station for their own safety.  The Hells' Angels were furious.  One of their own had been injured, and they were baying for blood.  They followed, and a mob surrounded the police station, demanding that the unfortunate motorist be handed over to them.  The first I knew of this was a telephone call at about 9 pm.  I was just feeding and changing baby Suzie, but I answered the phone anyway - I always did - I so enjoyed being back in the thick of things.   This call though was rather alarming.  Or should have been if I hadn't craved excitement.  The Hells' Angels were threatening to take hostages - police wives from country beat stations - whom they planned to exchange for their intended victim - the hapless driver.  We 'out in the sticks' - as Nailsea was in those days - were to lock our doors and on no account open them to anyone until we were advised otherwise. I was, I suppose, a little worried since I had two young children in the house.  But mostly I remember getting quite a kick out of feeling part of the action.  It could have been a Hollywood block-buster! The siege of the police station at Long Ashton continued for some hours.  By this time the offending driver and his passenger had been locked in the cells for their own protection.  I think a very senior officer, maybe even the Chief Constable himself, and/or the Divisional Commander, hightailed it to Long Ashton and addressed the vengeful mob who were still outside, and eventually they realised they were not going to get their way and dispersed. It must have been getting on for midnight before I got the call to say things had calmed down, but I should still be wary of a possible attack.  It was only when Terry came off duty that I realised just how hairy it had been for him, the only police officer up on the main road facing down dozens of furious Hells' Angels and trying to protect the motorist and his passenger from what would undoubtedly have turned very violent.   I was very proud of him, and a bit ashamed that I had quite enjoyed the whole incident!   Next time - a couple of humorous stories ....

And so to Nailsea

And so to Nailsea ....  I LOVED Nailsea ...  I LOVED almost everything about our time there.  And it was the time I came closest to being a real-life Heartbeat Wife.  Nailsea was a village beat in those days, and we lived in the police station, an old stone-built house with an office just inside the front door and a blue light above it.  As an ex-civilian employee, I loved living 'over the shop', even if it did mean we could be interrupted at any time of the day or night by a telephone call or someone knocking at the door.  I was back in my element!  And oh, the scope of those calls, from the hilarious to the scary, and all stops in between.  But more of that later.  This blog will definitely run to more than one instalment!

Our time at Nailsea didn't get off to a very auspicious start, however.  We moved in on a day of pouring rain to find that many of the interior walls were so damp they were running with water, and the whole house was grubby, to say the least of it.  I had to scrub grease and dirt out of the channels in the draining board and give the cooker and all the kitchen paintwork a good scrub before we could even think of eating anything prepared there.  Our three-piece suite wouldn't fit into the tiny front room, not even the 4-seater sofa we were so proud of (and which survives today, in spite of children and grandchildren leaping all over it for more than 40 years!)   We decided to make that little front room the spare bedroom, and converted a bedroom upstairs into a lounge, which worked well.

The police station - our home - was situated close to the centre of town, just up the road from the first arcade of shops pictured above, and the garden backed onto the grounds of the comprehensive school.  It operated as a two-man beat, which was worked on two shifts, 9am-5pm and 5pm-1am, alternating weekly.  The other Nailsea beat policeman lived in a council house and he and Terry shared a motor-bike, which was, I think, a Triumph Tiger 500cc-twin.  At the end of a shift one of them would drive to the other's home, where they would change over and drive the back to where they wanted to be.  Terry loved that motor bike and was never afterwards without one - he was still riding a Triumph up to last September, though he did have Suzukis and BMWs in between.   

Determined I would not become isolated as I had been in Minehead, I joined the local amateur dramatic society, then called the Nailsea Venturers.  I have lovely memories of playing Daphne in Noel Coward's Present Laughter, and I made many friends, one of whom turned up years later at my drama group in Midsomer Norton, and who remains a close friend today.  (Kay, you know who you are!)   Another (who for reasons that will become obvious must remain anonymous!) gave me an experience that can still make me smile.

At the time Nailsea was notorious for the so-called 'Key Parties' of the early '70s.  It even got a mention in the News of the World, if I am not much mistaken.   Large numbers of apparently respectable professionals were involved, along with some business people - speculation was always rife as to their identities, but a lot of expensive motor cars parked outside someone's house on a Saturday evening tended to give it away. 

After rehearsals, many of us Venturers would go for a drink together at a pub close to our rehearsal room, as Drama Club members often do.  But one night one of the ladies, middle-aged (well, to me, aged only 25 or 26, definitely an older lady, but very attractive, very sophisticated, very friendly towards me) suggested we might go to a different pub.  I must admit I was intrigued - the pub she mentioned, within easy walking distance of the police station, was known to be the haunt of the Wife Swappers, as we called the people who attended the key parties.  And sure enough there were quite a few of them in the bar, including my friend's husband.  Looking quite pleased with herself, she led me over to him.  'Here we are ... I've brought Janet.'   He beamed.  'Can I buy you a drink?'  I thanked him and asked (I think) for a gin and tonic.  I have no doubt he thought he was onto something here.  So I took great delight in chatting whilst finishing my drink and then saying sweetly: 'And now it's time I went home.'  Which I did, bursting in the door scarcely able to wait to tell Terry: 'You'll never guess where I've been - with the wife swappers!'   It was my first and last encounter with that merry band.

Oh, I loved Nailsea.  I loved the little shops, the greengrocer's, the butcher's, the baker's, the hardware shop, the newsagents.  I loved the people, all really friendly. Terry's shift pattern was perfectly manageable.   Little Tracey (now known as Terri) started nursery in Tickenham and was picked up outside our door in a minibus.   And my writing career began to really take off.   My first short story, which I had sold to Annabel, the monthly glossy mag, appeared after we moved to Nailsea, and I was busily writing in every spare moment - after Suzie was born in 1970 that usually meant when I was up after feeding her in the middle of the night!

I know, I know, I haven't talked much about the sometimes bizarre, sometimes frankly scary, things that went with being that Heartbeat wife ...  there were so many of them they deserve an episode all their own.   I'll do that very, very soon ....   

Watch this space! 

g hait  'HEARTBEAT' WIFE   PART 3           North Hill, Minehead    Minehead, South Somerset .  Minehead, with the sea lapping the golden beach.   Exmoor and the Quantocks on the doorstep.  Terry's dream posting.  He had achieved his ambition to drive a powerful Road Motor Patrol car - his area stretched from Bridgwater in the north to the Devon border.  We were expecting our first baby.  We planned to get a dog.  We would be a real family.  What could be more perfect?   Except that I hated it.  I was so lonely, particularly in the evenings!  Terry was working 4 shifts - nights, lates, days and earlies, with one weekend in four off.  On nights he was getting ready to go to work at 10 pm, on lates (2-10 pm) he was at work, on earlies he wanted to go to bed early so as to be up at 5 am, and on days he often disappeared in the evening for a game of snooker with his partner.  I'd always had a good social life, centred mainly around my various amateur drama clubs, but now, pregnant and perhaps a bit homesick, I found it difficult to become involved.  Besides, we had the dog we'd wanted, an adorable yellow labador puppy we named Kim, and she couldn't be left alone for long, or she'd have chewed up everything we owned, just as she was chewing up my poor hands and arms!   I found young women neighbours on our estate distant and unapproachable - perhaps they were wary of the long arm of the law! - and the other police wives were a tight little clique who'd known each other for ever, so that I felt like an outsider.  In summer the town overflowed with visitors, in winter it was shuttered and bleak.  When our longed for baby arrived, she cried incessantly when she was put down in her pram or cot, then fell asleep and refused to feed when she was picked up.  I think now that maybe she had a neck problem, but it was very trying, and all my plans to walk her out in the afternoons, serene and beautiful in her huge Silver Cross pram, came to nothing.   The dog kept going for walkies on her own, and to top it all, we were very, very hard up.  I remember checking my purse at the end of the week to see if I could afford half a pound of sausages!   If it hadn't been for all these problems, though, my writing career might never have taken off.  Between washing nappies, feeding little Tracey Louise, walking the dog, cleaning, cooking and ironing, I began writing short stories.  Turning the ideas over in my head helped keep me sane, and I had the idea of trying to sell one and earning a little spare cash.  I tried a story on Annabel, a glossy monthly, and to my enormous delight it was accepted!  The cheque they sent me bought a much needed winter coat - £16 it was! - and the thrill of seeing my story in print has never been surpassed.     Not everything about Minehead was bad, of course.  In fact, some of it was lovely.  When Terry was due off duty at 2 pm  we'd take a picnic up onto North Hill and sit amongst the gorse and heather.  We'd drive down to Tarr Steps or the Devon coast.  One early morning Terry took me down to the front to see the waves crashing over the sea wall; another time he brought home a huge red mullet (I think!) that a fisherman had given him.  I loved our house, which had a long garden with a plum tree in it, and when Tracey had passed that interminable crying stage, I used take her for long walks in her push chair to the park and the sea front.     Somewhat amusingly I had my first encounter with garlic in Minehead.  I'd found a recipe for spaghetti Bolognese (how exotic!) and it called for "a clove of garlic".  I had no idea what that was - and neither did the lady in the greengrocers.  She tried to sell me cloves.  Eventually I was enlightened, and I still use that recipe today, a great favourite with the grandchildren, who can scarcely believe there was a time when nobody was familiar with garlic bulbs!   But just when I'd got used to the place, it was time for another move.  Nailsea - where we lived in the police station that was also the police house and I truly was a real life Heartbeat wife.  But that of course, is another story ...!