Glamour Boy by Damian Collins

Author:Damian Collins [Damian Collins]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2016-05-11T16:00:00+00:00

6

• CAVALCADE •

In the strange illusion,

Chaos and confusion

People seem to lose their way.

What is there to strive for,

Love or keep alive for,

Say, ‘Hey, hey!’

Call it a day?

Noël Coward,

‘Twentieth Century Blues’,

from Cavalcade (1931)

In the summer of 1929, free from his ministerial responsibilities, Philip Sassoon turned to two of his great private passions, aviation and art. Although he had owned aircraft for ten years, he had never actually learnt to fly. He asked Air Chief Marshal Sir John Salmond to dinner to identify the best instructor in the RAF. Flight Lieutenant Dermot Boyle (like Sir John and his brother Geoffrey Salmond, whom Philip had met in Karachi, a future Chief of the Air Staff) was recommended and Salmond had him posted to the 601 Auxiliary Air Squadron, where Philip had now been appointed the honorary commanding officer. Despite Philip’s tens of thousands of air miles as a passenger, he was not a natural student of flight. When Boyle was asked how the flying lessons were progressing, he replied, ‘I’m not teaching him to fly, only to land.’1 Nevertheless, while in training at RAF Cranwell, Philip crash-landed into a hedge and had to telephone the base at Hendon to ask for another Avro plane, telling the young duty officer, Geordie Ward, ‘I’m OK but I’m afraid the aircraft is confetti.’2

Philip received encouragement from his friend the Prince of Wales, already a qualified pilot, who wrote to ask, ‘How is the flying getting on and have you got any sense in the air at all yet? I can assure you it took me a long time to reach that stage and am in doubt even now sometimes as to whether I’ve reached it or not. There’s no doubt but that it’s … safer than motoring and far more fun.’3 Philip duly received his wings, after twice the usual number of hours of instruction, and his comrades in the 601 Squadron noted that his first solo landing was at Cranwell, which had the longest runway in the country.

In August Philip gave his now customary summer party at Lympne during the 601 Squadron’s summer training camp. Clementine Churchill was among the guests and wrote to tell Winston, who was away on a speaking tour in North America, ‘Diana [their daughter] and I have been to Lympne where everything was as luxurious and beautiful as ever – The Auxiliary Airmen … were swooping about everywhere (flying rather low I thought) and being hospitably entertained by Philip Sassoon.’4

The Schneider Trophy competition (now biannual) returned to England, at Cowes in September, following the victory of the Supermarine team in Venice in 1927. Philip, although no longer a minister, acted as the official host through his position as president of the Royal Aeronautical Society, an honour that had been granted following his Third Route air expedition to India. At Nubia House in Cowes, where Sir Godfrey Baring traditionally hosted royalty during the annual sailing week, Philip entertained the Prince of Wales, his sister Sybil and other followers of air racing

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