ON Friday, June 12 Helen Landau, supported by her husband John, gave the monthly talk entitled Prisoners of Hope: the story of the birth of aviation.

The hero of this astonishing story was Charles Stewart Rolls, most famously remembered these days as the eponymous partner of Henry Royce in their luxury motor car company. Yet the speaker made a vigorous case for his equal claim to fame as one of the pioneers of early flight.

Rolls was brought up in Monmouthshire in the home of his aristocratic father Lord Llangattock. At a very young age he showed amazing understanding of the latest mechanical and electrical inventions. He became well known in this country and in France as a motor car rally driver and by 1906 he had set up his own motor manufacturing company with the engineer Royce. His enthusiasm for aviation first developed in the sport of hot–air ballooning which brought him into contact with three resourceful brothers, Horace, Oswald and Eustace Short. They soon linked up with the Americans Wilbur and Orville Wright, who had just made the world’s first powered aircraft flight in 1903. They were joined by other young aviation enthusiasts such as John Brabazon, Frank Mc Clean, Griffith Brewer and Cecil Grace. They formed themselves into an unofficial association which they called the Aero Club and established their own aircraft manufacturing company at Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey in 1909. Their early machines were fragile assemblies of wood, wire and canvas. The French got off to a flying start with Louis Blériot’s successful crossing of the Channel in 1909, but the British were not far behind. In 1910 Charlie Rolls made the first two way Channel crossing. Tragedy struck a few months later when Rolls crashed and was killed while making an exhibition flight at an air show. He was only 33 years old.

The most astonishing feature of this story of youthful courage and ingenuity was that the British Government showed no interest whatsoever. Even after the Channel had been crossed politicians and bureaucrats failed to see the strategic dangers and possibilities of powered flight. Only in 1912 did the War Office finally establish a Royal Flying Corps and even then very grudgingly. There was no recognition of, or reward for, the young pioneers.

A memorial window in All Saints, Eastchurch to Charles Rolls and a flying companion records them as prisoners of hope, that is human beings driven to achieve their vision. Helen Landau adopted this as the title of her book and of this exhilarating and unusual talk.

On Civic Society business, we were reminded that Civic Week begins on Saturday, July 12 for which a programme of events is available. For further information, please see http://www.malverncivicsociety.org.uk/events_week.htm

The next talk, entitled The God Particle: the Higgs Boson will be given by Stephen Haywood. It will be held on Friday, July 11 at 7.30pm at Christ Church in Avenue Road. There is an admission charge of £1 for all.

JOHN DIXON