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This is a more personal area for collections of photos, holiday diaries and poetry written during the war by my father
Alcock & Brown's Telegram & Wing Piece
This is how we came to have a piece of Alcocks and Brown's aircraft and the original telegram they wrote on arriving in Ireland after the transatlantic flight My mother's note At the time Alcock and Brown landed in the Irish marsh my
father was on duty at the local Marconi wireless station , Clifden, where
transatlantic messages were forwarded to London and on.( Communications
were very primitive at this time, wireless telegraphy was in its infancy
) On seeing and hearing the plane land - with one wing crushed, all men
on duty rushed out of course to the adjoining field to greet them.. Alcock
asked whether there was any means of letting London know they had arrived
safely so my father showed thim into the wireless station where Alcock
wrote out the message which was to be sent by morse to London. Dad did
this and kept the original message written in indelible pencil, which
I have. Photos were taken of the staff with A and B; the wing being broken,
Dad and perhaps others too picked up a piece of the material used to cover
the struts. Later the plane was removed and the two men went off I presume
by the local taxi. I have several photos and my friend whose father was
on duty at the time also has some others.
Alcock & Brown Grampa is on the right in the background
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| ©2005 Rob Hayward |