COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

CHAPTER TWELVE ELONGATED BALLS
it carefully, into a near horizontal position, he clasped his hands
behind his head and the interview began. His ambitions were
boundless and he quickly made it clear that, if I joined him, he would
be buying me body and soul. There would be virtually no limit to my
travels or working hours. Holidays were unimportant. In a transparent
attempt to pressurise me the interview ran on until I was in very
considerable danger of missing my train.
At the end, just before calling up a chauffeur driven car to Euston,
he asked me if I was interested in the job. It had been such an arrogant
and unfeeling performance that I had already decided not to pursue it
and I expressed myself very firmly to that effect. But, give him his
due, he got me to the station in time.
The progress meeting at English Electric was equally tiresome. The
Lightning programme had slipped and Freddie Page, the chief
engineer, was keen to spread the blame. He had wound himself up into
a state of righteous indignation about the way in which Elliotts had let
them down.
"He didn't wish to point a finger, but..... In spite of all their
efforts it had proved impossible to...... The chief test pilot would
explain his difficulties....."
It was a tour de force - a splendid piece of play acting - which was
difficult to refute.
Jack sat and smouldered throughout the whole performance. He
was good at smouldering, particularly at this stage in his career, but
today he did so with ample justification. On the way home in the train,
brooding, he took longer than usual to fill his dreadful pipe - and
then:
"The bastards set us up. That won't happen again if I have anything
to do with it. Now David, what are we going to do about Wally
Monk?"
But I had gone long before we had time to do anything. To British
Oxygen, where there was a new development in aircrew oxygen
systems. And when, less than two years later, I next saw Jack again
everything had changed.
British Oxygen was a gentlemanly interlude working closely with
two charming characters. Jack Foster had flown night fighters
alongside John Cunningham, and had subsequently been a member of
Aero Flight, at RAE Farnborough, where he had taken part in the
transonic research on Spitfires. Air Vice Marshal Carnegie who, prior
to his retirement had been CAS7 RNZAF, was adviser to the main
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