Dad Flies a Spitfire

 

Dad was a child when the Battle of Britain raged over southern England. He watched the British fighter planes engage the Nazis - collecting shell casings, bits of aircraft, and radio masking ticker tape as it fell - and loved the unmistakable Rolls Royce purr of the Spitfire engine.

By the time he was old enough to join the Royal Air Force the Spitfire was almost out of service. He never got to fly one, although he did get to play in planes a little.

Dad in the cockpit of a Gloster Meteor, the first British jet fighter.

As the medics carried his body to the ambulance on a warm summer morning in 2017, the purr that would've been so familiar to Dad was heard over the house. A happy coincidence that he would’ve loved, the family agreed. There’re only 54 Spitfires surviving, what are the chances that one should fly near, at this very moment, as if saluting his passing!

When we heard the same purr above the crematorium 3 weeks later, as we lifted coffin from hearse to shoulders, we whispered - slightly unnerved, believing ourselves surely mistaken although we knew we weren't - can you hear that? You might hear a Spitfire overhead once a year if you're lucky yet there's been 2 flypasts in 3 weeks, at such significant moments. We couldn't have arranged this if we'd tried, the timings are perfect. Uncanny. Wonderful.

  

Dad's floral tribute was in the shape of a Spitfire.

Mum recently told me that Dad had always wanted to fly in a Spitfire, as a passenger, but it was always beyond his wages, and his pension. I wished I'd known, and that I'd have been in a position to offer him the opportunity. But I didn't know and never thought to ask, and even if I had, I'd never have had the money to make it happen in real life. 

So now I offer the flight in retrospect, having brought it to life using Dad’s woodcutting tools. They were made by Record Ridgway Tools in Sheffield in the mid 1970’s, and after a little sharpening they're still very good to use. My print shows Dad flying a Spitfire, bottom left, towards the White Cliffs of Dover, as a Messerschmitt billows black smoke, falling to the English Channel, and other Spitfires engage in the Battle of Britain over the fields of Kent.

Dad was a quiet man and I a noisy, poor pupil, so I missed a great many opportunities to learn from him during our time together. Since he passed I’ve come to understand something of the necessity of being a better student and as a result, these days my Dad is able to help me learn all sorts of new, interesting, and valuable things. Like the art of reflection, of valuing that which lowers its voice, and of wood and lino cutting, which encourages patience, planning, and the cultivation of a vision worthy of belief, among other things.

I made 3 initial prints of this cut, onto 3 styles of paper. I think the RAF Blue is a suitable choice, so I’m making a limited edition of 54 numbered and signed prints of it, to mark the number of Spitfires still in operation today. The prints are $20 each, plus postage. Please get in touch via drwise100@gmail.com if you’d like one. Thanks.

Dad's model Spitfire; I held it up in the back garden on the morning of the funeral to take this photo, an hour before the real plane flew over the crematorium.