It started long ago, longer than I care to remember. The oldest pictures of "aircraft and me" are still black and white, quite faded now - and from my even earlier hobby stages, not yet up-in-the-air but yes, very enthusiastic at twelve or thirteen years, there are no pictures at all.

 

Maybe that's just as well: I might be tempted to bore you to death with an endless range of aviation pics, meaning as little to you as they would mean much to me! So let's confine ourselves to two pics only, one from the early days when I was learning to fly gliders, somewhere in Australia, way back in 1967. Aye, that's us, from the left to the right it's Brian McLaren - instructor, Jaap Verduijn - student glider pilot, Karin Groen - honorary wingtip runner.

 

The glider was the faithful "Kookaburra" of our club, predecessor of much sleeker aircraft I later flew, from Blanik gliders to a P-51 "Mustang" warbird. The "Kooka" has long gone, just like my flying days. The other picture, below, belongs to "now", showing how it all ended: Brian, Karin and the "Kooka" gone from my life, and me... forever grounded now, crippled behind a computer desk, dreamily reliving the past while "sim-flying" my very own Avro Lancaster bomber in MicroSoft Flightsimulator. Aye, it was a long way down... but hey: it keeps me off the streets, out of most bars, and hopefully also away from many other luringly inviting houses of widely spread but deeply ill repute (grin)!

 

Yet I'm still involved with aircraft. I don't fly them anymore - but they still give me lots of joy! Forty-odd years after I first took to the skies as an eager-eyed student pilot, I'm selling airplanes. I'm sharing my love. Life is good.

 

Cheers!