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     Another favourite drive was to North Church common and to Ashridge Park nearby. Sometimes we would get to Wipsnade Zoo near Dunstable Downs, which was a great interest. Mother and my sister Yvonne would prepare wonderful picnics, which we took with us. Tasty Sandwiches. Homemade Cakes Strawberries and cream so many other lovely things. Tea would be brewed on the portable mentholated burner it was great. Just the smell of Meths brings it all back to me.
     If we went to Dunstable there were usually the gliders to watch, we kids would join in and help the line up and launch of the aircraft. Usually these gliders were pulled up the hillside, and elastic cables would be attached sometimes to a winch lower down the hill. Often the spectators who would run down the hill pulling these cables, the glider gaining airspeed and lift and would climb and circle before landing on lower slopes.
     Sometimes there would be a display for us to watch one in particular caught my imagination was the “Birdman Flights”. At the time these caught newspaper headlines and were exiting to watch. The Birdman wore an overall type suit upon which were fixed stubby bat type wings under each arm held and controlled by hand holds grips. Between his legs a similar bat type tail was fitted.
     The show would start with the “Birdman walking through the crowds of sightseers wearing his complete outfit complete with a normal parachute mounting his powered aircraft which would then take him up some 6 or 7 thousand feet. Circling the field. He would then jump out and with his wings and tail opened out he controlled his fall and endeavour to climb, roll and dive like superman. Weaving all over the sky and giving a spectacular show to the crowds of sight seers on the ground. When he reached to his lowest safe altitude he would pull the ripcord and parachute down to safety.
      Unfortunately it did not always work out that way and as far as I know no Birdmen survived many of these dare devil flight demonstration. Whether they pulled the “rip cord” too late or the parachute failed to open perhaps due to it’s bad packing I can not say but clearly it was a risky way of making a living.
     These were pioneer days many of the gliders we saw were made by the pilots who flew them. Using wood and cloth and building the craft in there back yards. At this time there was one very small craft it was a machine I always wanted to build it was available in kit form but quite out the reach of my pocket money. This was the “Flying Flee” a biplane with short stubby wings usually powered with a small single cylinder engine.
     We often saw them flying about the downs but they could be difficult to handle and could be unstable.
     Dangers there might have been but at nine years old these men were heroes to me and I wanted to copy them! With my grandfather Page Wallis being in the Tent business my grandmother had plenty of canvas “off cuts” she could let me have from the tent covers she had been making. Using my mother’s sewing machine, some garden canes plus an old pair of overalls were soon made into an “birdman” outfit to the same pattern as those fliers we had watched. When the sewing was complete and the canes cut to length and fitted I was ready for flight trials.

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