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After my accident, and then doing ground-duties for about four to six weeks they sent me to the CFS the Central Flying School to learn to be a flying instructor; and I ended up being a flying instructor at Burnaston near Derby flying Miles Magisters.

One intake we had was for army volunteers to be glider pilots. They had to learn to fly powered aircraft first, so they came to us and we taught them how to fly. One of my pupils was an Army Major from the 11th Hussars Cavalry regiment — he had a big bristly moustache.

I don’t know if you know about aeroplanes but you ‘trim’ them, so that if you take your hands off they’ll fly straight and level. I noticed that this man had got the trimmer pushed right forward, I thought ‘that’s bit funny’, so I said to him ‘Major, just take your hands off the controls’, and of course it dived; so I pulled it back up again, and said ‘why the hell have you got the trimmer pushed right forward like that?’ He replied ‘Well old boy, I’m used to horses, I like to feel it on the bit’.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Becky Barugh of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Peter Dawbarn and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

See also more of Peter Dawbarn's stories:

• Dawbarn meets the Germans
• Combat
• Flippin' Heinkel 111
• Good Idea, Bad Idea
• A Close Encounter with the Equine Kind
• No Brakes And No Hydraulics, But It’ll Fly!
• Peter Dawbarn's Other Exploits

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