TALES FROM THE HILLS

(Ashmansworth and Crux Easton)

In 1911, the following letter from Crux Easton appeared in The Times:

“Sir,

Now that aviation in its balloon, airship and plane forms is making remarkable progress in many countries, I beg respectfully to make what I consider a solemn suggestion. There is a clause in the Litany used by the Church of England which is as follows: ‘That it may please Thee to preserve all that travel by land or by water.’ Has not the time arrived when one may hope that the words may be altered, or rather added to, so as to read: ‘That it may please Thee to preserve all that travel by land, water, or by air’? May one further hope that the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Pope, and the head of the Greek Church may simultaneously give instructions for the addition to that beautiful form of prayer? If so, they would, I venture to think, be doing an act of entente cordiale throughout the Church universal. 

“My suggestion cannot possibly be looked on as ‘controversial’ and so could surely be adopted without hesitation. I am afraid that I must plead personal interest as being the origin of my suggestion, which has arisen owing to my son having taken up aviation and being now at the War Office Balloon Factory at Farnborough.” 

Signed Charles de Havilland, Rector of Crux Easton, Hants.

Besides displaying a natural concern for his son, the rector shows far-sightedness about the growth of air travel, and its dangers. He also shows an early and admirable desire for ecumenism among the Christian churches.

Curiously, The Times published the rector’s prescient letter long before his son Geoffrey became known as a great pioneer in aviation.

Though it was still called the ‘War Office Balloon Factory’, it was also a mecca for fixed-wing flying contraptions of every kind, with an appallingly high mortality rate among the brave inventors who flew them. The phrase goes ‘On a wing and a prayer’ and those pioneers certainly needed all the prayers they could get.

 

Agricola, January 2023