Bandits angels 15

A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

That would be W.B. Yeats, who never drove a plane in his life. My godfather was called "Ace" because he was a successful fighter pilot in WWII . . .  and survived. Like my parents, who also served in uniform in the second war, he never talked about those days. We weren't particularly tight but every birthday and Xmas, he (or rather his wife Bess) would send me 10/- [that's ½ a £ in old money ≈ £15 nowadays]. At school, aged eleven, we used to run around with our arms outstretched being Hawker Hurricanes shooting up Messerschmitts . . . and never getting killed. It was like TopGun on the Xbox but with more fresh air and less sitting. 

I came across First Light by Geoffrey Wellum [obituary] earlier this year on Borrowbox. It's not something I'd usually read, because I'm not 11 anymore. But I couldn't find anything better when I needed something to plug in while I was chopping wood and sieving compost.

First Light is surprisingly good. Wellum became a Spitfire pilot before he was old enough to vote and, against the odds, survived through the Battle of Britain and, later, Operation Pedestal flying off a carrier deck to deliver planes to Malta. So many of Wellum's pals didn't make it: bad luck, sleep deficit, pilot error, bullets all conspired to scythe through each squadron. My mother dated a succession of aircrew while she was serving in the ATS and, as she married my father later, I guess none of them came back from all their missions. I suspect that she was a) too busy and b) too terrified to be sad.

This is one of the rare cases where it might be better to use earbook rather than page turner: Andrew Brooke captures the laconic modesty of doing very dangerous things while flying a plane very fast.