About the Author

Nicholas Gray started sailing at the age of 6 on a small clinker-built scow in Chichester Harbour, progressing to sailing a Cadet, a Heron and a Firefly. During his school and university holidays he crewed on many yacht delivery trips crossing the Mediterranean and the Bay of Biscay several times.

He bought his first keelboat in 1967 – a small gaff cutter called Roma, which was followed by two other wooden yachts.

In 1978 his sailing completely changed direction when he took part in the Two Handed Round Britain and Ireland Race in a friend’s very fast but lightly built trimaran, sailing with Peter Phillips. They had to retire from that race, but he had caught the multihull bug and he bought a 35-foot bright yellow racing trimaran called Whisky Jack from Philip Walwyn, an old childhood friend, who features in this book.

In 1979 he took Whisky Jack into the 2,400 mile Azores and Back Race, putting up the fastest overall time and winning her class. In 1980, with Don Wood, he chartered the 56-foot trimaran Great Britain IV, which had won the 1978 Round Britain Race in the hands of Chay Blyth and Rob James. Nicholas and Don campaigned her for a year and intended to compete in the Two Handed Transatlantic Race the following year but decided she was not strong or seaworthy enough to survive a transatlantic race.

Next he bought a 30-foot trimaran, naming her Applejack, and she won her class in the 1982 Round Britain and Ireland Race.

More conventional yachts followed and he now owns a 42-foot classic wooden ketch which he keeps in Ramsgate and a 35-foot wooden motor yacht which he keeps on the Canal du Midi, in France.

Despite owning some 14 yachts and having raced against some of the top yachtsmen (many of whom feature in this book), Nicholas has never been a professional sailor. He has worked in Merchant Banking, as a solicitor and in the petroleum industry. He has also had an interest in a sailmaking company and owned a boatyard specialising in the restoration of classic wooden yachts.

Last Voyages is Nicholas’ first book.

Making Waves

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more to follow

Acknowledgements

I would never have written this book, nor met many of the people featured, had my friend David Dillistone not introduced me to the somewhat dubious joys of racing his fragile and uncomfortable trimaran Heretic around the coasts of Britain and Ireland. This started my interest in the world of multihulls and in short-handed long-distance racing. Thank you, David.

Thanks must also go for the support I have had from all the people with whom I have sailed over the years, most importantly Peter Phillips, Julian Mustoe, Roger Hill and Don Wood.

I would also like to acknowledge the help and support I have had from Chris Waddington of Wicormarine, who kindly allowed me to clutter up his foreshore with a number of trimarans whilst they were in preparation for various voyages. Also many thanks for the invaluable advice I have received over the years from those knowledgeable gurus of all things ‘maritime’, Bob Brinton and Steve Parish.

I have had much assistance from author Clare Allcard (who gave me lots of encouragement and wise counsel in completing this my first book), from Edward Allcard, Denis Lochen of the Association Eric Tabarly, Jacqueline Tabarly, Susie Walwyn and her partner John Halsey, Kate Walwyn, Jill Blancaneaux, Christina Pasquinucci, Guy Pendred, Colonel Tim Street (for information on 6 Metre yachts), Dan Primrose, Bob Comlay (for information on Bill Tilman and En Avant), John Lewis (Royal Western Yacht Club), Lester and Henrietta Barnes, Eve Lytton and Robert Bennett.

I would like to thank the publishers and authors of the books shown in bold in the bibliography which I have used as source material.

If any acknowledgements due to other authors and publishers have been inadvertently omitted I hope they will accept my apologies.

My thanks to everyone at Fernhurst Books and especially to Jeremy Atkins for being brave enough to take me on.

Finally, thank you to Josephine for everything (especially for putting up with my strange sailing exploits over the years).

Nicholas Gray

December 2016

Acknowledgement is gratefully made to the following publishers, authors, photographers and family members for permission to use material and photographs as follows:

Chapter 1: Frank & Ann Davison

Cover of Last Voyage by Ann Davison, published by William Heinemann.

Photo of Reliance: By kind permission of Weymouth Museum Trust.

Chapter 2: Donald Crowhurst

Photo of Donald Crowhurst: © Keystone Pictures USA / Alamy.

Photo of Teignmouth Electron: © geogphotos / Alamy

Chapter 3: Mike McMullen

Extracts from Multihull Seamanship: © Michael McMullen, 1976, Multihull Seamanship, Adlard Coles Nautical, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. By kind permission of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Photos of Mike McMullen on board Three Cheers: © Ajax News & Feature Service / Alamy.

Chapter 4: Simon Richardson & Bill Tilman

Photos of En Avant & crew: taken by Sandy Lee, © the estate of W G Lee. By kind permission of Barbara Waite and Robert Lee.

Chapter 5: Alain Colas

Photo of Alain Colas: © Ajax News & Feature Service / Alamy.

Photo of Manureva: © Ajax News & Feature Service / Alamy.

Extracts from The Atlantic Challenge: © David Palmer, 1977, The Atlantic Challenge, Hollis & Carter. By kind permission of David Palmer.

Chapter 6: Richard Pendred

Photos of Richard Pendred and Bucks Fizz: By kind permission of Guy Pendred and the Pendred family archive.

Chapter 7: Angus Primrose

Photo of Angus Primrose and Blondie Hasler: © Ajax News & Feature Service / Alamy.

Photo of Moody 33: By kind permission of David Moody.

Chapter 8: Rob James

Photos of Rob and Naomi James & Colt Cars GB: © Ajax News & Feature Service / Alamy.

Chapter 9: Peter & Thomas Tangvald

Extract and photos from At Any Cost: © Peter Tangvald, 1991, At Any Cost, Cruising Guide Publications. By kind permission of Christina Pasquinucci and Cruising Guide Publications.

Chapter 10: Eric Tabarly

Photo of Eric Tabarly: © Ajax News & Feature Service / Alamy.

Photos of Pen Duick: By kind permission of Denis Lochen of the Association of Eric Tabarly.

Chapter 11: Philip Walwyn

Photos of Philip and Kate: From the Walwyn family archive. By kind permission of Kate Walwyn, Susie Walwyn and John Halsey.

About the Author

Photo of Nicholas Gray as a boy: From the author’s family archive.

Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders of the extracts and photographs used in this book. If any errors or omissions have inadvertently been made, they will be rectified in future editions provided that written notification is made to the publishers.

Afterword

The impetuosity of youth combined with the fatalistic attitude of an 80-year-old willing to accept his end at sea in the Antarctic. Money pressures destroying long-held dreams and a refusal to accept reality. A determination to overcome the trauma of the loss of a beloved partner. Caught out in unexpected appalling weather conditions with an inexperienced crew. Sheer bad luck leading to a fatal fall overboard. Corrosion on an old boat causing it to break up and sink. A sudden disabling heart attack whilst nearing land.

Each of these factors could explain the deaths recounted herein. Perhaps a major factor might also be over-familiarity with the sea which inevitably comes after sailing the world’s oceans year after year, combined with increasing age and infirmity.

There is no single answer which can explain the tragedies described here. Ages range from 25 (Simon Richardson) to 80 (Bill Tilman). The youngest and the oldest were lost together on the same boat in the South Atlantic. Six others were in their thirties, two in their fifties (Frank Davison and Angus Primrose) and three in their sixties (Eric Tabarly and Peter Tangvald were both 67 and Philip Walwyn was 68).

One factor, which is common to nearly all the tragedies is the lack of life jackets or safety harnesses. This is a controversial area, complicated by the fact that the use of such aids was far less frequent in the past than it is today. A number of the sailors were well known for their abhorrence of the use of such devices. Tabarly never used them and famously said that he would prefer to spend a few hours in the water rather than to be dragged along by a still moving boat. Rob James was not wearing either a life jacket or a safety harness. Had he donned a harness, he might not have gone over the side and had he worn a life jacket he may have survived the time he was in the water. Philip Walwyn was not a believer in them but he was wearing one on the occasion when he was washed overboard from his small monohull in the north Atlantic. This probably saved him. He was not, however, wearing a life jacket or safety harness when found after he had fallen overboard from Kate, at the end of his last voyage.

Mike McMullen after his tumble from the foredeck of Three Cheers in the Round Britain Race, which nearly drowned him, said that on Three Cheers they wore safety harnesses or life jackets when they thought ‘conditions warranted it.’ However, he did admit that the incident was a salutary lesson and he would think more carefully about their use in the future.

Surprisingly Tilman, who never thought much about his or his crew’s safety and never took on his long ocean voyages any form of safety equipment – no flares, no life jackets and no life rafts – did comment on the low freeboard and lack of guardrails or life lines on En Avant’s wide deck. However, this may have been more an expression of his disgust at finding it difficult at his age to propel himself around the decks rather than a concern for the crew’s safety. It is not known what sort of safety equipment En Avant carried, but in the circumstances none would have been of much use if, as is supposed, the boat turned turtle and sank quickly.

Lack of money and a desire to carry on regardless was a feature of several of the voyages. Everything on En Avant was done on the cheap. Maybe because of the cost, or more likely as a result of Simon’s somewhat arrogant and over confident belief in his own ability, no professional advice was sought on the conversion or on the quality of the work carried out. No qualified surveyor would ever have allowed a ballast keel to be added to an old steel hull merely by the welding of some steel plates to the bottom without some well thought-out through-hull bolting, especially if the hollow box keel was later to be filled with lead or iron ballast. The lack of any such ballast would have left En Avant extremely vulnerable and tender and this most probably contributed to her loss.

None of this concerned Simon, who was maybe seduced by an oft quoted remark of Tilman. When asked how someone could get on an expedition to get to the Himalayas, Tilman merely said “Just put on your boots and go.” One of Tilman’s biographers, Tim Madge, suggests that Tilman did Simon no service when the old man suggested that “any worthwhile exploration could be planned on the back of an envelope.” Simon was not an experienced sailor. He had crewed on a few delivery trips around northern Europe and, apart from one trip to Greenland as part of Tilman’s crew on board Baroque, he had no experience of sailing in high latitudes. He did have Tilman on board with all his experience of polar waters, but Tilman took no part in the handling of what he called ‘this steel monster.’ He said poignantly in a letter sent from Rio to a friend in England ‘I don’t know why I am here.’ To back this up there are two photographs of the old man on board En Avant, one taken as they left Southampton, showing Tilman staring backwards at the passing water lost in his own thoughts. The other was taken somewhere near the equator in the boat’s cabin on the occasion of Simon’s 25th birthday. It shows a haggard Tilman looking quizzically and somewhat out of place as Simon blows out candles on a cake whilst the crew, who are obviously enjoying themselves, stand around wearing little but swimming trunks.

Whilst it would not be correct to call Frank Davison a ‘loser’ it is clear that many of his problems were self-generated and he too often let his enthusiasm get the better of him. With the Reliance, he got himself into the all-too-familiar trap of taking on something way beyond his means, aggravating the situation by refusing to acknowledge it and then allowing perfectionism to take over. Anybody who has known someone taking on the pleasure (and pain) of restoring or rejuvenating an old vessel will know of examples where the project, after a while, simply runs away from reality. Such people get too emotionally involved with the project, reason goes out of the window, costs mount up and the boat takes over. Once started, it is hard to leave a project half completed or, even harder, to know when to cut one’s losses. This is what happened to Frank and Ann Davison.

But what could they have done? The bank which had a mortgage on the boat demanded its money back, then threatened to foreclose and sell it. Another creditor, to whom Frank owed only a small sum, took out a court summons which Frank could not honour. This would have led to a writ being nailed to the mast and the boat impounded. Whilst the bank dithered and took little action beyond threats, the other creditor got as far as obtaining a date for a court hearing. Ann and Frank knew that a forced sale would have raised barely enough to pay off the debts, leaving nothing for them.

No wonder then that they decided to clear out whilst they could. Before they left, Frank wrote a letter to his bank telling them they were leaving and heading for Cuba where they intended to sell Reliance to repay the loan. Frank believed this would maximise the amount they could realise. Nobody in England wanted a three quarter completed vessel. A successfully completed transatlantic voyage would surely have increased her value.

It was sheer bad luck that the Davison’s ran into bad weather from day one and were unable to escape the English Channel. Had they met a fair wind, they surely would have made it into calmer and warmer waters and Frank was ingenious enough to have been able to complete the boat as they went along. Instead they met an inglorious end amid the rocky coves of the island of Portland, just underneath the lighthouse, swept there by the notorious tides of the Portland Race.

Enough has already been written about Donald Crowhurst’s end. Hubris dragged him down and, once his courage failed him and he missed several opportunities to stop the whole charade, there was only one possible ending. Circumstances, not all of his making, certainly conspired against him. The withdrawal from the race of Bernard Moitessier and the sinking of Nigel Tetley’s yacht Victress removed from Crowhurst any chance of his being able to slink home quietly, unnoticed and un-garlanded into some small Devon harbour in second or third position. This was irony of an exquisite degree. To have fraudulently set yourself up in a race which you then could not avoid winning would be too much for almost anyone, however strong, to face up to. Even a man as stable as Moitessier, who had nothing to answer for, could not face the thought of the adulation and exposure he knew would be awaiting him on his return to Europe and France. He turned his back on it all and disappeared into the islands of Polynesia ‘to save my soul.’

Anyone who has seen the short video film made by the artist Tacita Dean of the wrecked and piteous Teignmouth Electron lying decaying on Cayman Brac with broken wings will appreciate the tragedy of the whole thing.

Angus Primrose’s Demon of Hamble appears simply to have been overwhelmed by bad weather near the Bermuda triangle, during a period of equinoctial gales. There was little Primrose could have done to avoid his boat capsizing, taking on water and sinking. Such a possibility was inherent in the type of boat she was – a beamy, high freeboard, large volume hull with a big vulnerable centre cockpit.

What caused the loss of Bucks Fizz and her crew in the Fastnet race will never be known. Whilst multihulls have survived intact in weather worse than that experienced in the Irish Sea, the huge waves which built up so quickly were described by survivors as especially vicious. The fleet was in an area where the continental shelf shallows sharply and this ground effect is known to build up short steep seas not found in deeper waters. These seas, combined with a degree of inexperience on the part of Richard Pendred and his crew in leaving the centreboard lowered, may have contributed to the capsize. It will never be known whether all of the crew attempted to take to the life raft, but it was located nearby with only Richard Pendred inside. Many people have been lost (including Angus Primrose) in the very act of attempting to board a life raft and this may have been the reason for some or all of the crew’s loss. Perhaps it would have been better had they stayed with the upturned vessel, as is generally considered best practice. Bucks Fizz would have floated high out of the water when inverted and I do know that the trimaran had an escape hatch in the underneath of the turtle deck wing. The crew would have been able to get in or out of the upturned hull and shelter inside waiting for rescue. This would have been uncomfortable, and wet, but probably safer than risking one’s life in those seas in a small inflatable life raft. Many people all over the world have survived safely for long periods in upturned multihulls awaiting rescue. People have even survived in upturned monohulls for long periods. Most noticeably, Tony Bullimore survived in the Southern Ocean for five days trapped inside his upturned monohull, Exide Challenger, until rescued by the Australian Navy. He would never have survived in a life raft.

Manureva and Alain Colas were considered by many as an indestructible combination. They had circled the world twice, had crossed the Atlantic many times and had raced around the British Isles. What could go wrong on their last voyage together, a simple autumn sail from France to the Caribbean through mainly benign waters with a steady trade wind blowing from behind for much of the way? The weather in that year’s Route de Rhum Race was generally favourable and Manureva disappeared south of the Azores where bad storms are rare. It is considered that the most likely reasons for the sudden disappearance of boat and skipper were either a collision with another ship or the trimaran breaking up and sinking from some inherent fault, possibly corrosion. Several people who saw the trimaran in St Malo before the start of the race commented that her aluminium structure was showing distinct signs of wear and corrosion. The three hulls were held together by four aluminium crossbeams each consisting of a number of tubes and struts. These were welded and bolted to each other and to the hulls. Manureva was 10 years old and had been built in a hurry in 1968, completed just in time for Tabarly to enter that year’s OSTAR.

There are many problems in the welding and use of aluminium, including that of metal fatigue, not all visible to the naked eye. This would have been why Colas had the structure x-ray tested for corrosion before he left on his solo circumnavigation in 1973. Five years had elapsed since then and the boat had been sailed and pushed hard during that period for many thousands of miles. It is therefore quite likely that Manureva suffered a sudden and catastrophic failure which led to her breaking up and sinking before Colas could transmit a distress message.

Then there is the loss of Three Cheers. Was McMullen really in a fit state to undertake such a voyage only one day after he had buried his wife? Probably not, but I am sure nothing would have stopped him from going and the loss of Lizzie would have made him more determined than ever to win the race. He knew that he had a real chance of winning, knew his boat inside out, knew what she was capable of and he knew what he himself was capable of. He had been planning this race for four years and I do not believe that he would ever, for one moment, have considered pulling out. Those who knew Mike knew the determination he had when he had set his mind to do something.

The shortest route from Plymouth to Newport takes one right into the far North Atlantic where conditions are at their worst, with gales, icebergs and fog but where the distance to sail is the least. Most competitors make a compromise by taking a longer route further south in the hope of meeting better weather. In the first ever OSTAR Blondie Hasler (also an ex-marine) in his tiny junk rigged Jester sailed far to the north to Latitude 58º North and, if he had continued on a great circle route (i.e. the shortest route) from that position, he would have sailed right through the middle of Newfoundland. Hence Mike’s assertion before the start that he might actually go so far north that he would sail behind the back of Newfoundland. This would have appealed to him in normal circumstances and after Lizzie’s death he would have adopted an all-or-nothing approach to the race. I am sure he simply out sailed himself and his boat’s capabilities and they either capsized or hit an iceberg or just broke up in big seas. Whatever happened, I like to believe that he was leading the fleet and enjoying every minute of it.

As for the others, well, a slip or a knock from a loose and swinging gaff can happen to anyone, even to the world’s most experienced sailor. For that was what Tabarly was. He had spent virtually his whole life from 1964 to 1990, over 25 years, doing nothing but sail and race his boats over the oceans, often alone. Whilst he was ostensibly a French Naval Officer, the French Navy allowed him as much time off as he wanted and never engaged him in any real naval duties. But when it comes to it, even a man such as Tabarly can be taken off his guard and knocked overboard by an out of control spar, just like the most inexperienced of us.

Everybody inevitably relaxes when approaching harbour, when land is near and the wind and sea begin to calm down. This is when one is at ones most vulnerable. For the same reason, in the mountains more accidents have happened on descents after successful summit bids than during the ascents themselves. Both Rob James and Philip Walwyn were lost on the doorsteps of their destinations, James whilst entering Salcombe Harbour and Walwyn just 10 miles from Falmouth.

In James’ case the cause of his loss was something as simple as a broken rope – the rope holding up the netting strung between the fore and aft crossbeams of his trimaran. Multihull sailors are used to jumping into and running over these nets without a thought.

Philip Walwyn, who was exhausted after a difficult voyage from the Azores, could simply have missed his footing (the boat did not have any guardrails or lifelines) but his family believe that he had a heart attack, collapsed and fell overboard and then had a further fatal attack as the rescue helicopter landed in Cornwall. That is the cause of death given on his death certificate. Philip had suffered from bad health for some years and hypothermia, caused from long immersion in the sea, is well known as being a trigger for a heart attack. But, as with Mike McMullen, Philip would have enjoyed himself to the last and had the satisfaction of all but completing one of the most amazing single-handed voyages of all. He was, I believe, the first man ever to sail an International 12 metre yacht, which normally has a crew of twelve or fourteen, solo across the Atlantic.

Finally, people have very strong opinions about Peter Tangvald. Many say he was totally irresponsible. He would set sail, often with only his young children on board, without regard to hurricanes, the season, pirates or other dangers. He ignored his own health problems and suffered the loss of two of his wives whilst at sea. His son, Thomas, recounts hearing his sister Carmen screaming from within L’Artemis as it broke up on the reef. This was probably the result of Peter’s habit of locking his children into their cabins whilst at sea. If this was so, Carmen would have been unable to escape from the wreck before it was too late. Peter ignored pleas not to leave on his last voyage during the hurricane season or at the very least to take some crew with him.

Other people say he should be recognised as the superb seaman he was who sailed the seas for many years with simplicity, sincerity and skill and in an environmentally friendly way: something we should all admire. He was undoubtedly a fine seaman and navigator but he left a trail of loss and ruined lives behind him. People say a lot of what he wrote in his book, At Any Cost, is not true.

Here also was a man who suffered from ill health, experiencing heart problems all his life but he did not let this hinder him in his ambitions. He had a major heart attack a few years before his death when he was given merely a year to live. He suffered from angina and one must ask whether it was responsible for him to set off on his last voyage with only his young daughter on board and with his son being towed behind on his own boat. Thomas, who survived the accident, was never able to work out why his father ran onto the reef. Clare Allcard, who became Thomas’s guardian, thinks it is likely that, during the voyage, Peter had another heart or angina attack (a used ampoule of nitro-glycerine was found amongst the wreckage) and in a befuddled state decided to keep well to windward of his destination so as not to miss the island entirely. He then misjudged his position and ran onto a reef which he thought he was well clear of. He had no one on board to help him apart from his young daughter.

As for Thomas Tangvald’s disappearance in 2014, there can be no explanation. Here was a highly intelligent young man aged 37, at the height of his considerable powers, who left his wife and two young children ashore and embarked on what should have been an easy trip to look for a new home for them. Yet no sign of him or his boat has ever been found.

Thomas had a tragic life which is almost too unbearable to think about. He was born at sea, saw his mother shot by pirates, saw his step mother knocked overboard and drowned and who then saw his father and half-sister drown on a reef in the Caribbean. He then lost his own life at sea whilst on a simple single-handed passage.

All those who have been written about in this book were brave men and women doing what they loved most of all. We who knew them are poorer for their loss. Sailing is not a dangerous sport and, compared to mountaineering, losses are exceedingly rare. After all, to date over 200 people have died whilst trying to climb Mount Everest, of whom 18 died in 2015 alone and five have died so far in 2016. For every 100 climbers who have scaled K2, the world’s second highest mountain, 29 have died – almost a one in three chance.

Nothing worth doing in this life is entirely free of risk and everyone who takes to the sea must be aware of this, however small the chance.

Bibliography

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Allcard, Clare, 1990, The Intricate Art of Living Afloat. W W Norton & Co.

Allcard, Edward, 1967, Voyage Alone. Robert Hale.

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Allcard, Edward, 1952, Temptress Returns. Putnam & Co Ltd.

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Chapter 1

The Last Voyage of Ann and Frank Davison and
the Loss of the Reliance (1949)

An ageing aunt of mine first told me about her friend Ann Davison and the tragic voyage of the Reliance, which led to the loss of Ann’s husband Frank. When I was young this aunt was an exotic figure who lived alone in a mews house in South Kensington and worked at the Foreign Office. At the age of twenty, at the start of the Second World War, she had married an RAF bomber pilot. He was killed six weeks later. For the rest of the war she did something secret at Bletchley Park and later worked for, and became the lover of, Frank Birch, the head of Bletchley’s Naval Section. He was one of the people who helped crack the Enigma code. After the war she helped Frank Birch write the official history of British Signals Intelligence during the war.

My aunt Monica was one of the first women in England to own her own sailing boat. Soon after the end of World War II, she bought a series of old gaff cutters which she kept on the Helford River in Cornwall, looked after by a local boatman. One of these yachts was an old Falmouth Quay Punt called Curlew, which later achieved fame in the hands of Tim and Pauline Carr. They spent many years on her cruising the world to far flung places including time spent on South Georgia in Antarctica. Curlew has now ended her sailing days and is exhibited at the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth.

Monica escaped to Cornwall whenever she could get away from London. It was during one of these visits that she met Ann Davison who was preparing her boat to become the first woman to sail across the Atlantic alone in her small yacht Felicity Ann. When I was a schoolboy, Monica gave me a copy of the book Ann had written about her life with, and the death of, her husband Frank – a story which fascinated me ever after. The book, first published in 1950, was called Last Voyage and was subtitled ‘An autobiographical account of all that led up to an illicit voyage and the outcome thereof ’. Some years later Monica gave me a copy of Ann’s next book, called My Ship Is So Small, describing her Atlantic trip.

Cover of Ann Davison’s book Last Voyage

Frank and Ann Davison were free spirits who first met in the years leading up to the Second World War. When he was young, Frank left England for Canada, worked as a lumberjack, panned for gold, gambled successfully on the grain market and then lost all his profits in a failing oil company. He raced motor cars and drove huskies across the Canadian snows. He sailed a small yacht single-handed back to England, where he taught himself to fly. In 1934, having got married, he took over a near derelict aerodrome on the Cheshire side of the River Mersey. There he built up a business offering charter flights, aerial photography and any thing else that came along.

Ann had been born into a family of artists in England. She went to Veterinary College determined to ‘do something with horses’, became engaged to, and then ditched, a fellow. She became obsessed with aviation. In the 1930s she was one of the very first women in England to have qualified as a commercial pilot. She eked out a living working freelance doing charter flights, mail delivery by air around the UK and whatever else she could pick up.

In 1937 Frank advertised for a pilot to fly out of Blackpool, offering joy rides to holiday makers. Ann, who was seeking a change in her life, answered the advertisement and was taken on.

Ann shared Frank’s love of variety, excitement and adventure. They had much in common and, after a while, fell in love. Frank divorced his first wife, Joy, in 1939 and that same year he and Ann were married. Sadly, Joy was killed in a flying accident the next year.

Their business prospered and Frank was full of ideas to expand further. He planned to build a make of Dutch aeroplane in the United Kingdom and hatched plans for an aerial bus route linking towns in the north west of England when the Second World War broke out.

Three days before the declaration of war the Air Ministry grounded all civilian aircraft. Then they requisitioned the aerodrome and the house in which Frank and Ann lived. The aircraft and everything else were bundled out of the hangers and stored in a nearby grandstand where the entire lot was destroyed by a fire, started by an intruder. No one in authority wanted anything to do with the situation and no proper compensation was ever agreed or paid. The RAF was not interested in Frank, he was considered too old, and nobody at that stage of the war wanted a female pilot.