Flights of fancy
Mike Timm of Kleinemond recalls sneaking onto The Castle (Richmond House) property as a boy to play in an airplane. Sounds incredible? Barry Luckman, part of the Atherstone family of Dunlop House (East Bank), can bear this out - with details.
The AvroAnson, a British twin-engined, multi-role aircraft had been used in training and in a variety of roles for the RAF, Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and other air forces before, during and after the Second World War. Barry’s Squadron Leader uncle was sent out to SA for the formation of 43 Air School and Barry’s widowed mother and children followed. After the War, the planes’ guns, wings and fuel were removed, and the aircraft were lined up on a hill nearby for any interested persons to buy - at £25 each. Tom Kelly, owner of Richmond House in the 1940s, bought one. His daughter, Betty Gemmill, later inherited The Castle and owned it for about 70 years.
Barry now lives at Settlers Park, and takes up the story: “An arrangement was made between the Gemmills and the Atherstones, for me and their son Richard to get together. The Castle, with its enormous grounds, was wonderful for kids. Much of it was covered with dense indigenous coastal bush, with buck aplenty, stunning views up and down the Kowie River, and magnificent sea views.
At first the plane was mostly intact including engines, although props and landing gear had been removed and she rested on concrete blocks. The wings were still there, but possibly trimmed. The cockpit and instrumentation were complete, as was the navigation-communication station. Richard was the Pilot and I, the Wireless Operator and
Navigator, sat directly behind him. (A little later a pretty local lass was enlisted to be Air Hostess.) We crawled forward through a gap near the cockpit to get to the bomb department (none of that instrumentation actually existed). On the main body, against the fuselage going to the rear, were table stations with earphones; in retrospect, I think they were probably for navigational or bomb aiming training.
Richard attended Rugby School in the UK and was flown out for school holidays (in those days, it was not uncommon for kids to be schooled overseas). Richard’s ‘flying experience’ meant we were quite capable of flying this Avro all over the world. Richard knew all the jargon: we always went through the pre-flight checklist and I would get clearance from the Tower and relay the runway to the Pilot. We would go through the engine warm-up on each engine.
“The Pilot relayed engine temp and fuel flow rate, all recorded by me in the proper Flight Log. Wherever we flew we were in constant touch with the appropriate Radio Tower and always relayed our exact position. We would usually fly up the East Coast of Africa from Johannesburg to Lusaka, to Nairobi, to Addis Ababa, to Cairo, to Geneva, to Heathrow. What great adventures we had!”
Later, the AvroAnson was partially broken up (Barry and Richard profited from scrap metal proceeds) and the rest buried on the property.
Last year an odd piece of rivetted yellow metal emerged from our vegetable patch. We cut it off, displayed it in Richmond House Museum and invited Barry over. He confirmed it was indeed part of the fabled aircraft, and even pointed out where his boyhood aircraft had stood!