Memory of a Flight

Life is a culmination of the past, an awareness of the present, an indication of a future beyond knowledge, the quality that gives a touch of divinity to matter.
Charles Lindbergh

The wave of the future is coming and there is no fighting it.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh

This is not really a very interesting blip but this is the tail of The DeHavilland Heron outside Airport House which was the aircraft that flew the last passenger flight from Croydon on 30 September 1959.

We were attending a wedding reception next door and I stopped to take some pictures of the old Croydon Airport which opened on the 29 March 1920. It is sadly looking decidely frayed around the edges... a very depressing sight really. But in its heyday the Croydon Aerodrome (as it was called) experienced world wide fame:

"The aerodrome was known the world over, its fame being spread by the many aviators and pioneers who touched down at Croydon, such as

* Alan Cobham, who flew from Croydon to Cape Town and back in 1925-6;
* Charles Lindbergh, who flew into Croydon in 1927 shortly after completing the first solo trans-Atlantic flight;
* Bert Hinkler, who made the first flight from Croydon to Darwin, Australia in 1928;
* Charles Kingsford Smith, who beat Hinkler's record;
* Amy Johnson, the first woman to fly from Croydon to Australia, later to return to Croydon to a jubilant welcome.
* Winston Churchill, who took extensive flying lessons at Croydon and was nearly killed during a crash at take-off in 1919.[6]
* Tom Campbell Black, who with C.W.A. Scott won the MacRobertson London to Melbourne Air Race [1] in 1934;" ~ Wikipedia

So for one afternoon with sprinkling rain blurring my vision I found myself swept up in a moment lost, virtually forgotten, apparently no longer valued. However, I wonder had this moment not existed would my present be in its same form?