Propellerhead - Antony Woodward

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overdrawn.

      Microlighting, it transpired, fell into that select category of sports—alongside base-jumping, wing-walking, sky-diving, motorcycle racing, hang-gliding, free-climbing, sky-boarding—where insurance companies were not tempted by your business, even at a 99 per cent premium. If you had life policies, health insurance or endowment mortgages, all were invalid the moment you set foot in a microlight, or at least until you emerged unscathed. A consequence of this was that, because microlights could not be insured, they could not be hired. You could not, therefore, have a few lessons, acquire a licence, then rent a machine when you felt like flying (as with a Cessna). If you wished to maintain a licence, there was no alternative but to buy a machine. There was the option of buying second-hand, but as Richard said, with an activity of this kind it seemed to make sense to buy new. Thereafter, from the moment it arrived, it was racking up expense in running, maintenance and monthly hangarage charges at whichever airfield we ended up keeping it.

      Richard—the bank manager—did the sums. Although we differed in the extent of instruction we required (Richard, having a PPL, only had to apply to the Civil Aviation Authority to adapt his licence), the dismal conclusion was the same. We needed£6,000 each now, plus, for me, another £2,000 for instruction and other expenses, spread over however long it took.

      Despite what I might intimate to people unfamiliar with the advertising industry, I was still a junior copywriter. I worked for a tiny advertising ‘boutique’—one of the rash of 1980s start-ups—located above a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. Richard earned slightly more but was only in the black himself because it was a condition of his employment. We were in no position to buy an aircraft. ‘Saying you haven’t got the money, is not a reason,’ said Richard. ‘It’s an excuse. It comes as no surprise to hear you’re trying to back out.’

      Richard examined my bank statements and declared that, if I followed his instructions, I should be able to raise a £4,000 loan. He could raise about the same. It was not enough.

      We asked one or two friends if they would care to come in on our project, but they had read about microlights in the same newspaper reports that I had and, with gracious thanks, the offer was declined. For a time it looked as if the whole scheme would have to be shelved but then it occurred to me that there must be some central organising body for microlighters, and it must have a newsletter. Why not place an ad there? I rang the BMAA—the British Microlight Aircraft Association—and they told me that their quarterly newsletter, Flightline, could indeed carry an ad if I joined (£12 per year adult member, £18 family), but they were going to press next day. I dictated: Thruster Syndicate. Third or quarter share to buy new plane. 01-381-8533.’

      A week or two later, the magazine arrived. It was an engagingly homespun publication full of pictures of offbeat flying machines and advertisements for engines and propellers. I could understand hardly a word. I flicked through to the small ads. On the last page, in the Miscellaneous section, amid advertisements for windsocks (‘8 ft dayglo orange ripstop nylon, ideal for field and private airstrip use’), microlight holidays in the Lake District (‘100 hours minimum flying experience’), Mercury flying suits (‘smart gear at a smart price’), Skymaster recovery parachute (‘full instructions included’), there it was.

      There were no responses.

      Towards the end of April, letting myself into the flat, I just caught the phone. ‘Hullo. Hullo. The name’s Watson. Lester Watson.’ It was an educated male voice, my parents’ age, disengaged but authoritative. Assuming it was a wrong number, I did not pay much attention. ‘I’m calling about the advertisement. Yers.’ He had a most characteristic way of speaking, as if he were talking mainly to himself. ‘Yers, we were wondering about a Thruster, too. Have you got one yet? How do you find it?’ He spoke in distinct phrases, like a toy operated by pulling the string. By the time I had realised what he was talking about and mumbled that, as it happened, we had not yet done anything about it, he had moved on. ‘Come and stay and we can discuss it. We live in Norfolk. There’s an instructor nearby. We can talk to him. Dan, my son, is also interested. Salsingham is the address; Salsingham Hall. We’ll see you Friday evening then.’ I was too confused to think of a reason why I could not manage the weekend, and by the time I had thought of something, I found I was speaking to a dialling tone.

      So on Friday evening, Richard and I found ourselves back in Richard’s bottle-green company Rover, in a traffic jam in the Forest Road in north-east London. To my surprise, Richard had been enthusiastic about the trip when I told him about Mr Watson. The truth was that as the novelty of returning from Africa had begun to wane and, as neither of us had girlfriends, any potential new distraction was welcome.

      After forty minutes, during which we moved no more than a hundred yards, he swung suddenly into a side street, accelerated down it, turned left at the end, accelerated down the next street, decisively turned left at the end of that, accelerated again, until he was forced to brake sharply at a row of concrete bollards which separated us from the road we required. ‘Well?’ he said. ‘Which way?’

      The only navigational aid was an ancient black-and-white paperback London A-Z. The corners were so turned back on each other and overlapping the pages either side that it was a job to open it. When I did, the pages covering Central London, fell out—not that this mattered, as we were far outside this zone, adrift in a no-man’s labyrinth of minute print and unrecognisable roads. I had found where we were, cross-referenced it with where we needed to go, and was about to give him instructions when Richard set off again. Moments later we were at another dead end. ‘Urgh,’ he sighed, clicking his tongue. ‘I forgot you can’t read maps.’

      Richard and I were used to each other’s company despite being friends by accident. In the early 1980s we had occupied rooms across a corridor in a faceless brick and concrete block of student accommodation, allowing us to observe minutely—and listen to—each other’s habits and lifestyles sufficiently to nurse a mutual but confident dislike for each other. He read maths and The Daily Telegraph, played rugby and liked student politics; he was someone I knew could not be my friend. Our natural instinct was to disagree on all things. However, as I had a refrigerator and he had a toasted sandwich-maker; and he had a car, and I had a girlfriend he fancied greatly, we ended up seeing more of each other than we would have chosen. She moved on. We were left as friends.

      I had never been to Norfolk. All I knew was that it was flat, intensively farmed, on the way to nowhere and that doctors marked the medical records of patients who had survived accidents but been left slightly subnormal ‘NFN’—Normal for Norwich. It was also, at the end of the 1980s, the county that transport policy forgot. It was getting dark as the All carried us through the Thetford Forest to wide, open fields with huge metal irrigation booms. And it was after 11pm by the time we turned in through a pair of brick lodge gates and up a long drive to what was evidently a vast country house. All was in darkness except for a single downstairs window. When we switched the engine off, the sound of organ music wafted out into the cool spring night air.

      We pushed on the bell of the grand main portico. There was no sound from within to indicate that it was working. After a few moments of alternate ringing and knocking, we tried the door. It had appeared to be locked, but when Richard gave it a harder shove it opened, and we found ourselves standing in a huge entrance hall, enveloped by resounding organ music. There was a yellow glow from behind an organ case at the top of the big double staircase. ‘Hello?’ I called. ‘Hello!’ The organ music continued.

      ‘Hello! HELLO!’ shouted Richard.

      The music stopped. A male voice echoed back.

      ‘Hello? Is someone there?’ It was the voice on the phone.

      ‘Hello!’ we shouted back.

      A short, wiry figure came down the stairs. He looked at us a little doubtfully, as if unsure what we wanted.

      Then he spotted our cases. His face cleared.

      ‘Just off?’ He extended a cordial hand. ‘Excellent. Very nice to see you again. You’ve

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