From Fitzroy’s Private Diary (Extract 174)

You wouldn’t have thought it would work, but it does. The human eye sees what it expects. Those fly-boys have only gone and created some mock airfields, and blow me if the Germans haven’t started bombing them rather than the real thing. If you see them from the ground, they’re nothing more than painted plywood shapes representing the outline of buildings and airplanes. Ah, but when viewed from high up in the air…

I’ve always had a bit of thing about aerial photography. I did think about doing a bit myself, over enemy lines, but I never could quite get the hang of it. Without the proper setup, I’d almost certainly drop the camera out of the bloody plane. Aeroplanes today go so much faster, and you get much less time to visually recognise things on the ground. It’s said to be the main reason why St Paul’s hasn’t had its chips. It’s not by the grace of god it’s been spared, it’s more to do with the enemy bombers using it as a navigation marker. Still, if a little bit of divine propaganda keeps people’s chins up, then who are we to suggest otherwise.

Anyway, the real reason I didn’t go down the aerial photography route was down to the fact that there was no way on earth I was taking Alice up in a plane. Nowadays, there’s no way she would even consider such a thing as she knows what kind of pilot I am (flying by the seat of my pants, like all the flying aces do).

Alice isn’t risk adverse by any means, but she does her best to keep me away from flying. I keep telling her, I’m much more likely to get killed driving one of my cars. The way automobiles have come on since the early days is quite astonishing. It often feels like you’re flying when pelting along the road at breakneck speed. The advantage, of course, is no one’s shooting at you while you’re doing so. Occupational hazard and all that, but it’s nice to get a break from that kind of thing.

I’m hearing fascinating things about these new helicopters. I really rather fancy having a go in one of them. The only question is, how can I get my hands on one without Alice knowing?