Much has been made this weekend of the 80th anniversary of the first flight of the Spitfire which was the most famous plane of WW2.  Aircraft had changed greatly since the first flight by a heavier-than-air aircraft by Louis Bleriot in 1909 across the English Channel which prompted the Daily Express to announce the news with the headline "Britain is no longer an Island.

My paternal Grandmother lost her brother and many former school friends during WW1 but her future husband was fortunate not to be sent to France.  He wrote this card a hundred years ago in 1916  to her ‘from Tent 18’ saying that he liked being at Farnborough but thought often of friends in those awful other places.

Instead, as a skilled tailor, my Grandfather was in demand to help to build aircraft for the recently formed Royal Flying Corps. (later the RAF)  The RFC arose from the early flying experiments by the Army and Royal Navy using balloons, kites and airships and finally aeroplanes for military purposes and so the Corps was established in 1912 only nine years after the Wright Brothers’ flight of 1903 and three years after the first flight across the Channel by plane. The first aeroplanes the RFC had were the Bleriot XI shown on the postcard and soon they established a factory for making new aircraft.  At the time the planes were built mainly of ash wood with the wings and tails covered with fabric and the ribs and spars were enclosed in fabric pockets.  So my grandfather helped with the fabric making aeroplanes and on the other card (extra) he wrote that he also worked on planes similar to the Farman biplane.  Later he helped to build the S.E.5, one of the best British fighters of the war