officers might give Gujar a run round in it and check up on his flying for me. It wasn’t strictly according to King’s Regulations, of course, but I have always found the R.A.F. to be quite helpful, and Allen and Gujar went off and did circuits and bumps in this thing for an hour one evening while I watched the landings from the shade of the hangar. When they came in, Allen told me he was all right. Gujar was as pleased as a dog with two tails.
That evening I told him he could give his notice in to the bank and start as soon as he liked.
I had his licence to negotiate then. I had been given a provisional B licence for myself which had to be renewed each month, and was only given on the understanding that I went to England very soon to take it properly. I started in to battle then for another provisional licence for Gujar Singh so that he could carry on in the Fox-Moth while I was in England. Officialdom came back at once and asked who was going to maintain the Fox-Moth and sign it out while I was in England, and I threw back the ball that Flight Sergeant Harrison had A and C ground engineer’s licences and would do it in the evenings. Officialdom replied that Flight Sergeant Harrison was licensed for Dakotas, it was true, but not for a Fox-Moth, and I replied that, surely to God if he could sign for a Dakota he could sign for a pipsqueak thing like a Fox-Moth. So it went on.
Presently it came out that Gujar Singh was an Indian subject, and we found that he could get a B licence with the greatest of ease in Karachi. There was a York of R.A.F. Transport Command going through to Mauripur the week that he joined me, and the C.O. very kindly gave him a passage in that. He was back three days later in a Dakota of Orient Airways that was going through to Baghdad, and he had a brand new B licence, valid for six months. I wished I was an Indian.
The way was clear then for me to go to England. I sent Gujar off in the Fox-Moth for a couple of charter trips and he came back all right from those; I turned over the books to him and told him to do the best he could with the business while I wasaway, and transferred most of the cash in the account to London. When I’d left sufficient for him to carry on with safely in my absence, I found that I’d got two thousand two hundred pounds to transfer—not bad for six months’ work with one little aeroplane. But I’d had to work for it.
I left Bahrein six months and two days after I landed there. I got a cheap ride as far as Rome on a Norwegian Skymaster that had taken a load of Italian emigrants to Australia and was on its way back to pick up another lot. There was nothing going to England from Rome except regular services which would have charged me the full fare, so I took a second-class ticket by rail. It took me longer to get from Rome to London than it had to get from Bahrein to Rome, and when finally I got out of the train at Victoria Station I was thankful that, if all went well, I should be going out by air in a week or two.
I got on the Underground and went to the same hotel near Euston that I always stayed at because it was cheap. I had written to Basing Aircraft from Bahrein on my cheap notepaper, and they had sent me out details of the Airtruck. I rang up their sales manager, a Mr. Harry Ford, first thing next morning and said that I was coming down to see them right away. He told me a train and said he’d send a car to meet me. I drove from Basingstoke Station to the works behind a chauffeur like a lord, the first time I’d ever been to an aircraft works like that. It felt very odd.
Harry Ford was quite a decent chap, but I could see he didn’t quite know what to make of me. He’d been in aviation a long time; I knew of him, though I had never met him. I think he knew a little about me. He gave me a cigarette, and then he said,
“We got your letters, Mr. Cutter. What did you think of the stuff about the Airtruck we sent you?”
“Looks all right, for what I’m
That evening I told him he could give his notice in to the bank and start as soon as he liked.
I had his licence to negotiate then. I had been given a provisional B licence for myself which had to be renewed each month, and was only given on the understanding that I went to England very soon to take it properly. I started in to battle then for another provisional licence for Gujar Singh so that he could carry on in the Fox-Moth while I was in England. Officialdom came back at once and asked who was going to maintain the Fox-Moth and sign it out while I was in England, and I threw back the ball that Flight Sergeant Harrison had A and C ground engineer’s licences and would do it in the evenings. Officialdom replied that Flight Sergeant Harrison was licensed for Dakotas, it was true, but not for a Fox-Moth, and I replied that, surely to God if he could sign for a Dakota he could sign for a pipsqueak thing like a Fox-Moth. So it went on.
Presently it came out that Gujar Singh was an Indian subject, and we found that he could get a B licence with the greatest of ease in Karachi. There was a York of R.A.F. Transport Command going through to Mauripur the week that he joined me, and the C.O. very kindly gave him a passage in that. He was back three days later in a Dakota of Orient Airways that was going through to Baghdad, and he had a brand new B licence, valid for six months. I wished I was an Indian.
The way was clear then for me to go to England. I sent Gujar off in the Fox-Moth for a couple of charter trips and he came back all right from those; I turned over the books to him and told him to do the best he could with the business while I wasaway, and transferred most of the cash in the account to London. When I’d left sufficient for him to carry on with safely in my absence, I found that I’d got two thousand two hundred pounds to transfer—not bad for six months’ work with one little aeroplane. But I’d had to work for it.
I left Bahrein six months and two days after I landed there. I got a cheap ride as far as Rome on a Norwegian Skymaster that had taken a load of Italian emigrants to Australia and was on its way back to pick up another lot. There was nothing going to England from Rome except regular services which would have charged me the full fare, so I took a second-class ticket by rail. It took me longer to get from Rome to London than it had to get from Bahrein to Rome, and when finally I got out of the train at Victoria Station I was thankful that, if all went well, I should be going out by air in a week or two.
I got on the Underground and went to the same hotel near Euston that I always stayed at because it was cheap. I had written to Basing Aircraft from Bahrein on my cheap notepaper, and they had sent me out details of the Airtruck. I rang up their sales manager, a Mr. Harry Ford, first thing next morning and said that I was coming down to see them right away. He told me a train and said he’d send a car to meet me. I drove from Basingstoke Station to the works behind a chauffeur like a lord, the first time I’d ever been to an aircraft works like that. It felt very odd.
Harry Ford was quite a decent chap, but I could see he didn’t quite know what to make of me. He’d been in aviation a long time; I knew of him, though I had never met him. I think he knew a little about me. He gave me a cigarette, and then he said,
“We got your letters, Mr. Cutter. What did you think of the stuff about the Airtruck we sent you?”
“Looks all right, for what I’m
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