Paul Brickhill Reach for the Sky (1954)
I vaguely recall having been told to pick a book and read it back during the latter phase of my time at Ilmington Junior and Infants school. I would have been about nine, maybe ten, and none of the available selection had been written by Terrance Dicks, so I picked this, possibly because I'd seen the 1956 film starring Kenneth More, or more likely because I'd heard of Douglas Bader and liked the title; so it probably counts as some sort of first in my formative reading habits, what with it not being off the telly, at least not directly.
Should the name be unfamiliar, Bader was an RAF fighter pilot who lost both legs and yet continued to fly planes regardless, scoring countless victories before ending up in Colditz for the remainder of the war.
To briefly ramble at something of a tangent, following the passing of the aforementioned Terrance Dicks, I've seen it opined that he got children reading books like no other writer of his generation, although the claim is often made by persons of my age who seemingly read Doctor Who books to the exclusion of anything else, so I'm not sure it's entirely the same. On the other hand, reading is reading and maybe it doesn't matter. There'll always be a few who stick to a familiar furrow for the duration, and my own mother - who now routinely reads things no-one else understands - began with a shitload of Enid Blyton; so dogged allegiance to a particular author or even genre probably isn't the fault of whoever happens to be sat on the other side of the typewriter.
So I read and enjoyed Reach for the Sky as a child, regardless of the absence of Daleks, hence curiosity sufficient to justify my buying a copy found in Oxfam, Coventry, not least because it's the very same edition - a tidy little hardback with an orange cover.
Brickhill was a journalist who flew planes during the war, and who also famously wrote both The Dam Busters and The Great Escape. His prose has a certain trim populist efficiency and might be described as pleasantly musty - to borrow a term from John Bagnall. The narrative reads a little as though it has been dictated to a secretary, with pacier sections succumbing to clipped non-sentences - although thankfully without the usual suggestion of anyone attempting to invoke Orson Welles - and with the occasional weirdly arresting passage.
I vaguely recall having been told to pick a book and read it back during the latter phase of my time at Ilmington Junior and Infants school. I would have been about nine, maybe ten, and none of the available selection had been written by Terrance Dicks, so I picked this, possibly because I'd seen the 1956 film starring Kenneth More, or more likely because I'd heard of Douglas Bader and liked the title; so it probably counts as some sort of first in my formative reading habits, what with it not being off the telly, at least not directly.
Should the name be unfamiliar, Bader was an RAF fighter pilot who lost both legs and yet continued to fly planes regardless, scoring countless victories before ending up in Colditz for the remainder of the war.
To briefly ramble at something of a tangent, following the passing of the aforementioned Terrance Dicks, I've seen it opined that he got children reading books like no other writer of his generation, although the claim is often made by persons of my age who seemingly read Doctor Who books to the exclusion of anything else, so I'm not sure it's entirely the same. On the other hand, reading is reading and maybe it doesn't matter. There'll always be a few who stick to a familiar furrow for the duration, and my own mother - who now routinely reads things no-one else understands - began with a shitload of Enid Blyton; so dogged allegiance to a particular author or even genre probably isn't the fault of whoever happens to be sat on the other side of the typewriter.
So I read and enjoyed Reach for the Sky as a child, regardless of the absence of Daleks, hence curiosity sufficient to justify my buying a copy found in Oxfam, Coventry, not least because it's the very same edition - a tidy little hardback with an orange cover.
Brickhill was a journalist who flew planes during the war, and who also famously wrote both The Dam Busters and The Great Escape. His prose has a certain trim populist efficiency and might be described as pleasantly musty - to borrow a term from John Bagnall. The narrative reads a little as though it has been dictated to a secretary, with pacier sections succumbing to clipped non-sentences - although thankfully without the usual suggestion of anyone attempting to invoke Orson Welles - and with the occasional weirdly arresting passage.
Among the survivors fear and tension lay under the surface like taut sinews in a naked body, but always decently covered with understatement.
Bader comes across as having been a bit of a tosser prior to losing his legs, none of which quite detracts from Reach for the Sky serving as a genuinely inspiring story, even gripping, which is doubtless why it worked on me as a child. It's of its time, as the saying goes, but our man's slightly boorish youth of physical combat and mean spirited pranks is swiftly eclipsed by that which came after. I dislike the term hero but he was undeniably something in that general direction, and this biography goes a long way to breaking my association of aviation with lonely nutcases.
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