Ryland and The Bird

Those of you who read this blog regularly ( when I get round to writing stuff on here...) know that before I dedicated my life to writing stories I poured all of my energies into writing and performing songs, have done most my life. I was a lead guitarist and songwriter in many bands , but most successfully, (hmm, one could argue other wise) with my band Adventure Club. We put out an album, a labour of love really,  called "Wilderness Music" back in 2007. One of the  many problems we had back then was that we could never keep a line up together,  it always ended up just the two of us, just me and the singer playing and performing the songs to our small but dedicated  following. Eventually it all got a bit too much and we ended up amicably, calling it a day.  As traumatic as some of those days were I met some life long friends and it has to be said, many  genuine crazies. I learnt a lot from that time, not just about music but about people and well, life.  So much so that I wrote my first novel "27", about  that world.

The process of writing "27" helped me not only understand the inner workings of "The Novel", but  it also  somehow acted as a  psychic cleaning service washing away any of those souring thoughts about the world I had rejected.
This also meant that I could start new writing projects (click this to see what I'm talking about) and not only pick up the guitar again, but sing lead for the first time in my life.
My new band is called Ryland and The Bird and this time it's a very conscious decision to be a two piece.
It' raw pop with a hint of scuzzy blues and I love it. I thrash away at my guitar and whoop into the mike and my good friend Mr T- Bird Jones pounds the skins. We have both been in bands since we could grow facial hair and  the whole process of making music now of is one of ease and joy.  We're even thinking of getting an album together. But before you get your ears around  that, here's a funky little film, directed by Gary Wood of Radar Industries, for a song called "Coming Around Again." Enjoy.

Stone Cold, Cold Classic.

A few years ago a book  popped up on the Guardian Best Reads  list called "Fifty Grand". Written by a Northern  Irish writer called Adrian McKinty,  it's about a Cuban police woman determined to get to the US and find the man that killed her father. It sounded great in the review.  I devoured it in a day and immediately sort out his earlier work. I'd found one of those special  writers that you tell people about in the pub, and when you see that person again they  have brought up everything they've written too. His prose is tough, his ear for dialogue is pitch perfect and the books have more twists and turns than a Blackpool big dipper.

Mckinty's new novel "The Cold, Cold Ground", doesn't disappoint,  in fact it's probably his best to date. Set in 1981 in Carrickfergus at the height of "the troubles" we follow D.S. Sean Duffy as he tries to hunt down a serial killer whose  motives seem to be sexual rather than political - the victims are all gay men with segments of  music scores inserted into their person. A Catholic in a predominantly Protestants  area, Duffy is an outsider who will stop at nothing to bring peace and find the killer. It's a shocking story that moves at breakneck speed about a time and place that most writers have ignored.

Mckinty  is a rare presence in the crime genre, he writes with a wit,  lyricism and intelligence that the majority of British and Irish crime writers lack - he reminds me more of   Daniel Woodrell than Ian Rankin. His heroes are  canny scrappers on the edge of their worlds, trying to right the wrongs they have been confronted with. And like Ellroy and Peace he has a purpose other than to entertain ( although he does that fantastically)  he uses history to tell his truth about  political corruption, the abuse of women and children or just the plain wrongness of society.
So get on amazon , order the "The Cold, Cold Ground" and then get down the pub and tell everyone about your secret, cause I suspect he won't be a secret for very much longer.

Blimey. Has it really been over a year since I've blogged?  I assure you that it's not down to indolence but work load that I've not written anything for your perusal. Along with becoming a father I've been busy writing film scripts and treatments, ya know. I'm also completing the final module for my MA: a non fiction book about the rather fascinating and colorful  history of Sexology.
You can read all about it on my new blog here:

All Grown Up - The Lost Science of Sexology

In between projects I've also written a few short stories. Encouraged  by my good friend, the masterly short short story writer, Alan Beard and reassured of the form's validity  by Stuart Evers's "Ten Stories About Smoking" and Wells Towers' "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned", I've decided to post a story that I wrote at the end of last year. I have to point out that it was written before I knew my wife was pregnant....
I hope you like it.

“A Sweet Tooth.” By Ryan Davis

Grandpa died a few weeks ago. I sat alone with him surround by the white curtains on the ward and felt his hand go limp as the morphine padded something unbearable inside.

            He’d left my older brother Pete his arm chair. My mom got his books and records and he’d left me a small amount of money, which would come in handy for me and Shell, for Barny’s clothes and food. Don’t get me wrong, I love Barney so much, but I swear his tantrums are getting worse- he spat at me the other day and told me to leave the house. Shell’s become like some zombie slave for him - twenty four seven. The trip to give Pete the chair was a legitimate opportunity to get out the house and away from it all for a while.

Pete used to live down the road in a similar terrace to us. After writing a fly fishing game app in his bedroom that went on to sell over a hundred thousand, what he called “Unit’s”, Pete wrote a few more and sold the company.

“It wasn’t for a lot, he said “only a couple of million- I could have held out for more but I’m not greedy.”

“You could be in the Bahamas now, you idiot!” I said then laughed, hoping he thought I was joking.

Now Pete had moved to some confectionary of a cottage in the Cotswolds that seemed to be woven together by roses and whipped cream, with Annie and her Swedish- blonde hair, her long, brown body, a dog called Thompson, no kid - not yet- and an unlimited amount of time to think of what he wanted to do next with his money and life.

I have to say, it was an enviable position. My own attempt to set up an online booze store last year failed. After a conversation I had with him about the letters from the bank I thought Pete would come forward and offer a helping hand but they seemed to stay firmly in his pockets. He had lent me money to get my teeth fixed last year and I was still paying him back, so maybe that was why. Anyway, it was back to network support and getting as many late shifts as I could.

To leave the lights of the city and disappear into black motorway that ran through the country side was like opening the door from a steam room and feeling the cool tiles on your feet. For a while the road was clear but a car crash near Gloucester meant I was stuck in traffic for three hours and by the time I came to turn off I was sick of the drive time DJ, thirsty and bursting for a pee.

Annie opened the door looking all “city girl gone country”, decked out in Hunters and a blue and white stripy shirt.

            “Hello.” She said looking the chair up and down.

            “Granddad’s chair?” I said.

            “Oh…” she squinted, she was looking at the warn yellow fabric, thinning on the arms.

“”Well.I’ve got nowhere to put it. Can’t you put it in the garage?”

            “Yeah…sure.”

            I dumped the chair in the musty garage and walked back over the icy tarmac  to the kitchen aching to pee. I apologised again for being late, explained about the crash and being stuck in the car for hours. Annie nodded harassed, and began looking for her handbag.

            “ Pete’s out night fishing and I’m off to the village AGM. I’m in a bit of a rush?” she said slipping on her coat.

Annie had never liked me. I don’t know why.  May be my lack of ambition? My lack of money? My fondest for a good time? My past failures?

            “Lady of the Manor these days!” I said. I Iiked to joke around with her.

She pursed her lips, flashed a sour smile.

“I’m really, really late, Dan.” She pulled a pink bottle out of her bag, crossed herself with its  sherbet-y  perfume and slid  it back in. The sweet smell filled the house, but it didn’t suit her at all. If Shell wore it, it would smell good. It was more suited to Shell.

She locked up, slipped into her car and drove off beeping the horn.

            Desperate now, I pissed in the empty bird bath on his expansive front lawn and started the drive back. The image of Pete chipping out the iron –hard block of yellow ice, wondering how it got there rolled over and over in my mind and I took myself by surprise every time I sniggered loudly as I drove  back down the dark motorway.

 At twelve o’clock, apart from the small Nigerian woman with a lisp who was on the Check-out I was the only other person in the service station.

I got a table by the giant window. There I was, reflected in the glass, a ghost of puffy eyes and thinning hair amongst the smudges made by toddler’s sticky fingers and their gluey mouths. I sipped my coffee and listened to the buzz of the overhead air con and crackle of the fountain. It felt joyful hearing those simple sounds; white noise, so undemanding and so far from Barny’s squeals and needs.

 Then that peace was broken by the sound of a heavy diesel engine. A rusting, powder-blue transit van pulled up in the car park. The side door slid opened and a rucksack was thrown out followed by a girl. She was in her early twenties with white and pink striped hair that reminded me of Coconut Ice sweets. She wore faded black jeans, clunky, black un -laced boots and a white vest that was tight over her small breasts. Her plump arms were covered in a rainbow of tattoos.

As the van drove off the girl spat on its back door then ran after it, her breath visible in the cold night air, banging her fist on the side. She was just about to reach the driver’s window when it gained momentum and slipped away, out on to the light studded motorway. She yelled something at the empty road like it was a person, grabbed her bags and made her way in to the restaurant.

Even though it was just me and the counter girl, she placed her bags down in front of the coffee machine with a flourish and a loud huff worthy of a larger audience.  She plunged her hands into her pockets, routed around then pulled out the pockets themselves.

Empty.

Then, she knelt down and began  scrambling through her bag throwing out its contents as she went: a multi-coloured Indian scarf, a grey towel, many white vest tops, batches of  black rolled up socks, a box of  Tampax, small white pants and then two  blocks of Dairy Milk chocolate - a party size and a regular sized one. The regular sized bar left the bag with such a force that it slid across the white tiles and landed at my feet.

I didn’t say anything for a moment, guessing she would notice. She sat on her now empty bag, head in hands, surrounded by what looked to be her whole life.

            “Do you need some change for the machine?”

            She lifted her head.

            “Huh?”

I could see her face clearly now: a small high nose, full lips that fell into an austere pout and big, blue teary eyes.

            “No. I’ve got some money somewhere I just can’t seem to find it...” She said and put her head back down.

I took a sip, wincing over the last dregs of the thick, syrupy coffee. My teeth where squeaking. After the fifteen fillings my dentist told me to stay clear of sugary drinks and snacks but I needed to stay awake and a coffee with three sugars was the only thing I was allowed to use these days to keep me going.

“I can buy you one, until you find it…your money I mean.”

            She didn’t move for a moment, for effect or for real, who knows? Then she sat bolt upright.

            “Ok. Great. Why not? Yeah I’ll will have one. It’s cold out there.”

She began gathering her things and pushing them back in her bag. I picked up the chocolate bar placed it on the table then went and brought the coffees.

 When I got back she was in the chair adjacent mine with the bigger bar of Dairy Milk torn open and a triangle of chunks broken off.

            “Thank you so much.” she said.

            I smiled and handed her the cup.

            “What a fuckin’ nightmare!” she said and began sipping from the top of the streaming cup.

            “You lost your lift?”

            “Lost my lift… lost my boyfriend.” She snapped off chunk and began chewing on it.

            “And now you’re left here.”

            “Now I’m here. Thanks again for the coffee.” she looked at me with an inquisitive frown.

“You’re not one of these men who hang around places like this, waiting for girls like me are you?”

I sat back in my chair. One of those men?

“No.” I said shaking my head, smiling gently, so that I didn’t look like I was over compensating. Then I gave her a “Like, duh,” look. I tore open three sachets of sugar at once and tipped them in to my cup. For some reason I couldn’t say I was going home to my wife and baby boy.

“I’ve just got back from a conference about a new app I’m developing. I’m here to freshen up.”

I put the spoon in and stirred

“Freshen up. OK…” .The girl raised her eyes at the stack of empty sachets of sugar “That’s freshening up, eh …”

She held her hand to her mouth and laughed.

Her hair was greasy. She had a shiny red spot on her forehead, but other than that her skin was without a blemish, almost liquid. She was good looking, but I didn’t find her attractive until that moment she was opposite me and began to speak.  I could smell the chocolate on her breath, see the tackiness of it sticking her tongue to the roof of her mouth and something flipped inside me.

“Fair enough.” she said.

“More to the point, do I have to worry about you?”

“That’s up to you.” She said raising a thick mousy eyebrow.

“You’ve been dumped?”

“I pissed in his beer tonight.” She sniggered looking around the room.

“Really? I pissed in my brothers’ bird bath.”  I smiled.

“Nice…” she said coolly with a co-conspirators nod. “He was bringing girls on stage and singing to them…can you believe that?”  

            Her left arm was taken up mostly by a large red heart tattoo in an elaborate green frame. In the middle was written “Robin 4 Jocelyn 4 ever”. At the top of her arm, above a TB jab scar was the name of a local band I recognised - it looked like it had been composed with a compass and an ink cartridge.

            “Don’t say you’re a fan of The Creators.”

            She looked at her shoulder.

            “Yeah. Robin, the lead singer is my, was, my boyfriend. He did that for me.” She ran her thumb over it.

            “But aren’t they, like, a skinhead band?”

            “Yeah.” She shrugged and took another chuck of chocolate.

            The Creators had been going since the eighties and their gigs were known to be hateful affairs.  BNP supporters pushing each other around to racist chants. Gay bashing lyrics and songs of hate. Robin must have been at least twenty years older than her.

            “Ok…” I said, loading the word with as much disapproval as I could muster.

            “No, well, it’s just good music you know. I don’t really listen to the lyrics…If you want to know, we argue a lot. It’s part of our relationship. We’re what you call, fiery”

She was getting a little defensive now.

            “No, no… “ I said “I just wondered about the tattoo , that’s all.”

            “I don’t agree with what he sings. He says he doesn’t really mean it these days anyway. Most of it is for the crowd.  Rob says he wouldn’t have an audience if he sang about peace and harmony. He’d be out of a job.”

            Back when we were teenagers my brother was beaten up by Creators fans.  He’d gone night fishing and a load of pissed up skinheads threw him in the canal. He said he remembered their t-shirts  and their heads shining yellow in the street lamp as he looked up from the water.

            Talking about Robin was getting her upset. I wanted to say, well, why doesn’t he just join another band? Change direction if he’s not that bothered?

But what I said was,

“How could you love someone so angry and attention seeking?”

She stared at me like I was an idiot.

            “Look, I’m not a racist.” she said glancing over her shoulder at the car park “we’ve been together five years. It’s got nothing to do with that. Anyway…this is the last time he does this. The. Last. Time. I’ve had enough…”

She took another chunk of chocolate. We talked some more.

She told me Robin was her first and only boyfriend. He’d never been violent with her, never seen him be violent with anyone. Looked after his mom too.  They wanted to start a family next year.  She went silent for a while as she chewed on the last block of chocolate, nodding, as if willing what she’d just said into life. Then she looked blankly at her coffee and told me her friend lived the other side of town. She would have to call her if she wanted to get back tonight. I said town was on the way and I would drop her back if she wanted. She smiled then leant over and gave me a kiss on the cheek.  Her lips were warm and soft. The chocolate on her breath and the smoke and shampoo smell of her hair was like the perfume from a bouquet of wild flowers. I felt my face flush with heat. It was a feeling that I thought I’d left behind a long time ago.

I knocked back my coffee and looked at the time.

I told the girl I just needed to use the toilet and then we could go.

 As I stood at the urinal I had this shiver in my chest, like something amazing would happen. That something I never knew existed would be in the taste of her tongue. A sweet danger, laden with something fresh that I never thought I’d want or that I’d need. Something that would lift me up beyond this world, that would make things better. I peed as quickly as possible and washed my hands trying to avoid my reflection as much as I could.

When I came out her seat was empty. I walked over to the table and through the window I saw the blue van grind away, puffing balls of black smoke in its wake.

On the table she’d left the smaller bar of chocolate. I put it in my pocket, cleared the cups and made my way to my car.

Sad country ballads played from the radio and the sugar and caffeine comedown had hit. A sugar crash. I was feeling tired and my vision started to blur a little. My thoughts were drifting back to the service station and the girl and I felt an ache in my stomach. I looked down at the chocolate bar, laying across the passenger’s seat then up at the large, illuminated blue sign - only sixteen miles till home.

 I flicked on the air con. Turned the dial up to” Maximum” in the blue section and let it blast my eyes.

It wasn’t cold enough, so I wound down all the windows. A frozen wind mobbed the car howling out the sound of the radio, clawing at my face and my hair.

I looked back down at the chocolate bar and picked it up. I felt its inconsiderable weight in my hand, then leant over and put it in the glove compartment. I turned back to the road, pushed my foot on the accelerator and watched the speedo rise.

 If I stayed like this I knew I could just about make it back home to my family.

            

Who is Harry Nilsson and Winter's Bone

Harry Nilsson ? Who he? He sang "Everybody's Talkin' ", you know, from "Midnight Cowboy". You may have heard him sing a song that most people think Mariah Carey wrote called "Without You." Well here comes the shocker - he wrote it ( Correction alert! Badfinger wrote it! Soz.)along with loads of other wonderful and sometimes wobbly- weird songs. If you want to know more about this seriously underrated songwriter you can watch the new documentary that is coming to all good cinemas soon called "Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him)?"


Also it's great to see one of the film's I'd mentioned in a previous blog , "Winter's Bone" getting great reviews, and , hold ya breath, a UK release Can't wait to see it.

Twitteringtons

Hello people,
I'm on Twitter. You can now read the scraps of mental ephemera that whirl through my mind everyday by clicking on this ,for mind seepage
Back soon!

Marrige,Rome, Tindal Street Fiction Group, Life.

Things have been a little hectic over the last few months, to say the least.


It was my birthday in June as well as my sisters, and my moms -this means lots of food, lots of drink , hazy mornings and irrgular bowel movements. I actually forgot about my birthday because of what was happening in July...I got married to my girlfriend of eleven years. We headed out to Rome and then Florence for the honey moon- Caravaggio, sweltering heat, The Ascension of Christ, Duomo's, headless statues, red wine, pasta, veal, suckling pig, St Peters, Ennio Morricone played out in The Vatican, stories of Frank Sinatra drinking dry a hotel, The Trevi fountain, Keats' death bed and death mask, and did I say there was a heat wave?

Rome is a huge, open aired museum full of Japanese and Americans , roaming round in packs taking pictures of everything and anythig - people moan about this aspect of the city. Thankfully I do have the knack of blocking the crowds out. It's like being at the theatre - you don't worry that the auditorium is full when you're engrossed in the play. Ancient Rome gave the world a lot of significant components for the way we live our lives today - the place has, and will always be busy.

Although, it seems amazing that the empire lasted as long as it did with the amount of rumpy pumpy, murder and mastication that went on. Death was around every corner of those dark, sticky streets, over run with soldiers, politicians, and prostitutes living for honour and glory. The levels of decadence were hilariously high. After feasting on larks tongues and donkey gullets, your average Roman would drink till he was sick, insult his best friend and either end up dead or victorious and friendless. I particularly loved Nero's marble bath in The Vatican museum- a shiny, purple, marble basin the size of a swimming pool raised six feet off the ground that could have fitted at least twenty other bathers in there. One suspects that getting clean wasn't always the modus operandi...



And on that note...I joined the Tindal Street Ficion Group.

Tindal was set up around twenty years ago by Alan Mahar , the writer and head of the wonderful Tindal Street Press , as a place for writers in Birmingham to read out and discuss their work. Over the years it has seen some great writers pass though its doors ,such as Catherine O' Flynn, Clare Morrall, Gaynor Arnold and the short story writer Alan Beard. Alan and Gaynor are still members and the current crop of writers is pretty shiny and wonderful too. It's great to be surrounded by people who are concerned about the craft of writing , as much as it is having a drink with them down the pub after. I've learnt loads already.

So, after a couple of turbulent and life changing months it's back to work.

"27" is being sent out to agents as you read this and I sit everyday clicking my inbox at ten minute intervals hoping for a reply. The rest of the time is spent polishing the book, jotting down ideas for the next one and hoping that one of these ideas will stick....

Re- post to celebrate the 110th birthday of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Did I ever tell you about the time I flew a plane? No? Well this is what happened...

“OK, you have control.”
I look at my hands. My knuckles are white. I can hardly breathe because of the heavy, hot air in the cabin. I’m gripping the control stick of the plane. The plane which I am now flying. By myself.
In front of me is the black control unit; a collection of dials, false horizons, tickers with numbers slowly rotating, that is telling me nothing.  A line of sweat rolls down my forehead. I want my right hand to let go of the control, to wipe it away. But it just won’t let me.
“Ken!” I bark into my head set.
I steal a quick glance to my left. Ken’s head is between his legs. Wasn’t that the crash position?
“Ken.There’s a screw coming loose on the cover of the engine. It looks like its going to shoot out its socket any minute...”
Visions of the bonnet flying off with a large tearing noise, then fire and smoke barbecuing us to a crisp, as we plummet, spiraling from the sky, gripped my mind.
My flight instructor, Ken came up red faced, staring at the pen in his hand that had rolled underneath his seat.
“Oh, that? Yes, I noticed that with the previous client. Nothing to worry about there. Perfectly safe. But I do think you should be worried about the altitude. We are gaining. We’ll be on Mars if you don’t concentrate. Remember what I said. The four finger rule! Now push the control in, slightly, and bring the nose down.”
Yes, that was it. If you place four fingers on to of the control panel, the line of the horizon should fall on your index finger. I was so tense I had been pulling back on the stick and I didn’t even know it. Pressing the column in, the plane slowly straightened out. I could now see my point of reference, the luminous green of Clee Hills.

This was my first flying lesson. I wanted it to take me out of my comfort zone. And it did. It certainly did.

I was a little lost for a while. The band I was in was on a break, (our singer was having a baby). Also, my previously unshakable faith in the power of music was being questioned. I felt stuck and a little scared of what was going to happen next. Then I stumbled across a French writer called Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. I suppose Saint-Exupéry is mostly recognised as the author of the children’s classic, “The Little Prince”. But it was the books he had written about his time as a pilot in the 1930 that mesmerised me. Tales of adventure and descriptive passages about the act of flying opened a door to a different world that appeared in places bright and weightless, compared to the black and lumbering days I was enduring.

He depicted sublime places in the sky; man in, and against nature. He seemed to be away from, but also very much in the world. I realised what I needed was to be very much part of the world again. There was, however the small problem of my fear of flying. But Saint-Exupéry was my man and I wanted to experience the beauty and the exaltation that he wrote of. This was the only way to do it. It was time to face my fear.

Over the phone the receptionist at the test centre told me that there was room in the back for a passenger. Due to reasons far too intimate to divulge here, I'd forgot my Dad’s birthday the year before. The Christmas before that I promise to take him Go-carting, but, illness stuck and the idea was forgotten.  Asking him to join me on this flight would be a great opportunity to get back in the good books.

The “Flight Centre” is situated in a small hamlet near Kinver, Worcestershire, called Halfpenny Green. I imagined a large aircraft hanger, dotted with battle scarred spitfires and twinkling private planes. A mixture of veterans and the ridiculously rich, taking their “Birds” to Challis for lunch then back to Blighty. Halfpenny Green, chocks away chaps…It is, in reality, in a business park. The big strip of tarmac strapped to the side of it goes by the name of Wolverhampton Airport. “It should be called Noddy Holder airport.”said a friend, half joking...

HQ was a prefab that dated back to the 1940’s. It sat, off white and squat under the Micro lights and private rust buckets that rumbled up, into the blue above us.

My instructor, Ken, was about sixty. He had bad breath, creamy white hair and a certain stillness that was of the odd, rather than calming variety . Ex –public school rang from his very soul. He wore square, tinted glasses, (the type that darkened in the sun) behind which sat his large, blue, watery eyes. There was something else about him, something that I couldn't quite put my finger on.
He led us into a tiny wood paneled room, and took me through the basics of flight with the aid of an old, red, wooden plane.

I would hazard a guess that it had been made about twenty years before Ken had, and like Ken looked a little rickety and worn at the edges. He pointed at the wings, pushed at the brass stick in the cockpit, lifted the whole thing and turned it around in the air. This was all said and done in a calm tone, but in a hurried way, with sentences that ran into each other...and he lost me. I didn’t absorb one single word. Plus, there was something still bugging me about him I couldn’t put my finger on.
Ken placed the aircraft down on the table in front of us and smiled.
“Ok. Got that? Would you like me to go over any thing? ”
“No. That’s great.”
“Right. Just going to check for clearance and we should be good to go.”
Ken left the room. My dad poked me in the ribs and whispered.
“Did you see his eye?”
"His eye?"
“His left eye. He’s got a glass eye...”
Ah yes, that’s what it was! They wouldn’t let a test pilot up there teaching pupils with a glass eye, would they? I’m sure he flew like a dream... I was just worried that if any thing was hurtling at full wack on our left, Ken would be none the wiser. Before I could change my mind he was back with clearance and we started the walk to the plane.

Previous to the lesson I had read, “Wind, Sea, Sand and Stars” by Antoine de Saint Exupéry. A poet of the skies, flying was a spiritual experience for him. Coming from the first generation of flyers, an era when the technology was still relatively new, engines consistently used to break down. When this happened you were pretty much a goner. He tells of his comrades flying out over the Sahara or the Alps and never coming back. Being lost to the skies. It seems that the experience couldn’t be anything but spiritual. Death rode on your wings every day, and that sense of perspective elevated one from the squabbling masses below. Surviving the flight alone had to electrify the senses – a truly existential existence.

In an early part of the book he talks about his first mail flight to Africa, he was like a cool postman, with a death wish. Antoine knew about the notorious flash storms and cloud banks that peppered the route. Cloud banks that concealed within them savage mountain ranges, and storms that could suck off your wings and spit you to the ground. Worried, he consulted a friend who was an old hand to the route.  He told him, “Sometimes the storms, the fog and the snow will get you down. But think of all those who have been through it before you…They did it, so can you”.

Ken went through the starting procedure, talking to himself as he went. Clunking buttons, setting dials, turning whatever was in front of him. All the time I kept looking at his eye. Did it move then? It was hard to see behind those glasses.

Ken manoeuvred us in to place and completed a final check with flight control. He powered the engine. Suddenly, the propellers flared up. The cockpit was now like a mobile sauna. The plane started to buzz and we pelted down the runway. Then, in seconds, I sensed the weight of the earth drop beneath us. A field turned into fields, that in turn became a tawny and green patch work, ever increasing in size. The cloudless blue of  the sky was now around us, everything below became smaller and  easier to see as a whole. Ken pointed east.

“That’s Wolverhampton, over there!”

It struck me how rural a country Britain still is. Wolverhampton looked like a concrete island in an ocean of fields. As he tipped to the left and banked to the right Ken pointed to the right
“R.A F. Cosford just there.”

As we flew nearer we heard ghostly, American voices invading our headsets. It was coming from the pilots in the chunky fighter planes which roared and spun above us as they flew back to base. Ironbridge was just about visible. Though, more striking was the silvery thread of the River Severn which flashed and twisted beneath it, coiling off in to the landscape.
I had relaxed. There were no goblins, running around my stomach. I was just enjoying the ride. Ken leveled the plane out.

“Ryan, if you would like to place both of your hands on the stick”
I did it automatically.
“Ok. You have control.”

And that was it. Ten minutes before, I had never flown a plane. Let a lone been in one as small as this, and now I was in control of it. And of our destiny. This was a flying lesson. I had almost forgotten that.

After the loose screw incident, I managed to keep a straight course toward the Clee Hills and their mysterious satellite tower. Then Ken suggested that I try and manoeuvre the plane round the hill. Time to steer the damn thing. This was done by turning the stick the direction you want to go, and when the plane was on course, turn it back to level out the flight path. My arms were still taught with anxiety. I gripped the stick and turned it slowly to the left. Then I froze. I didn’t want to turn it back. I felt that if I did I would flip the plane. It felt so precarious. It was bobbing around up there with no safety net. Ken grabbed my right arm and gently pulled it down.

“You’ve got to loosen up a bit!” he said flustered. Then quietly,
“You know, on a good day, all you need to steer a plane is your index finger. OK? Try again...”

Although I did not use my finger, with a nervous laughter from my dad in the back and some encouragement from Ken, I managed to get round the hill.

“Well, that seemed quite easy for you! What about a proper turn?” Ken ask, laconically.

By a “proper turn” he meant a 360 degree circle. You have to bank it at 35 degrees and lock the position by pulling back on the stick at the same time. Whilst doing this, you have to keep an eye on the false horizon; make sure you’re not going to too far over the 35 degree limit, listen to Ken guiding you through, try and block out the questions to Ken streaming out the mouth of an increasingly uncomfortable parent in the back; and also ignore the official babble of “Tango, Foxtrot, Papa’s” cracking in your ears from the flight control. I wiped my hands, in turn, on my jeans, placed them on the stick and squeezed.

“When ever you’re ready” said Ken.

Imagine being on the worlds tallest, flimsiest roller coaster in the world, hurtling round a bend at 160 mph. But in this case you’re in control of it.

“That’s good, Keep in the hold” I just didn't want to flip the thing and end my days compressed and burnt to a crisp in a field, just out side Wolverhampton.

The plane flowed smoothly in an almost perfect arc. Then - Boom! The left wing flipped up. The stick slipped through my hands, my heart filled my throat. Ken grabbed his controls.

“Turbulence” said Ken. “You get it over hilly areas. The thermals collect in the valley and spiral up. You’ll just have to deal with them. Tricky bastards. That was just one of the many factors up here to knock you off your course. You just have to deal with them.”

So I dealt with them. Turbulence stuck at least three more times and each time I took control. I won’t say I wasn’t frightened, it was just different. I knew what to expect and just put in place the procedure that I was told. It was all I could do. And, I pulled it off pretty well. Ken seemed pleased too.

“Yes! Well done!” his voice crackled, distorted and lively in my ears.

Somewhere in me a valve loosened and a lingering pressure streamed out. I had steered my way through a hazard that real pilots dealt with every day. Then he asked, “Do you want to do it again?”

I did. I did it again and went on flying to various points on the landscape for the rest of the lesson.
It was hot, uncomfortable and frightening at times, but it was also a thrilling and extremely special experience. It’s easy to take these things for granted. When we are squashed into economy, thoughts of deep veined thrombosis,  kids squealing and having to eat plastic food. This isn’t flying at all. This is being ferried from A to B in the quickest time possible. It is a shared experience and you are at the mercy of a airline.

The main feeling I got from flying in a three man plane was a huge sense of possibility. It offers hope and a feeling of freedom that you could fly off anywhere in the world when ever you wanted. You are in control of guiding the plane to your destination.

I agree with Exupery, that, “The machine (the plane) does not isolate us from the great problems of nature but plunges us more deeply into them.”It gives you a sense of perspective. A distance to view what is happening down there, to you and everyone else, literally and most importantly, mentally. It offered me a place to break away from the world for awhile. Of course, it wasn’t as dangerous a feat to fly a plane as it was back in Exupery’s day, but to me, it was just as scary. The experience had plunged me into my problems, and I came out alive and blinking the other side, exhilarated, ready to fly again.