Aero Club's flying start

ALAN MARRIETTE has been obsessed with flying since he was eight years old. Now retired, he is simply a much older, more experienced version of that boy – still bubbling with enthusiasm for his special interest and mad keen to talk about it and show you photographs of his current plane.

Alan's fascination with flying began when his mother saved up five shillings (25p) for him and his brother, Richard, to go for a sightseeing joyride in a Miles Aerovan piloted by Wing Commander 'Pick' Pickford.

They flew around the island and over Alan's home at The Doyle, the hill opposite L'Ancresse bus terminus where the Marriettes ran a tearoom that faced down it and attracted bus drivers and passengers as well as walkers enjoying the common. 'And that was it. I was hooked,' Alan said.

Unfortunately, he was too young to start learning to fly immediately, so he became a plane-spotter. After a spell in the Ville au Roi, the family moved to Victoria Avenue, which Alan still refers to by its unofficial name, Track Lane. During school holidays he would cycle to the airport at 6.30am to see the 'paper plane' arrive, then cycle home for breakfast before returning to La Villiaze for more aviation observation.

On passing the 11-plus, he really wanted to go to the Grammar School, but opted for Elizabeth College purely because it would give him access to the RAF section of the Combined Cadet Force. At the time, all college boys would do two years in the army section before being given the chance to choose another and, of course, young Marriette put in his request to wear the air force blue uniform the moment his spell in khaki was completed.

They turned him down.

He was devastated, but he didn't give up. In what was surely an unprecedented move, he wrote to the Air Ministry, pleading with it to put in a word on his behalf.

Sure enough, he was soon summoned by legendary maths teacher and CCF man Major George Curtis, known to a generation of schoolboys as Pud, who told him he had heard from the ministry and, yes, he could join the RAF section after all.

The next step was to apply to RAF Cranwell, the officer-training college, where he took an aptitude test and undertook a medical.

Disaster.

'My right eye was below standard for aircrew. I was gutted.'

That was the end of Alan's dream of a military flying career and for a while it seemed like the end of the world. Then, back in Guernsey, he bumped into Lewis Martin, who had built himself a single-seater biplane. 'I couldn't resist,' Alan says, eyes twinkling at the memory. 'And Lewis suggested I get a private pilot's licence.'

Naturally, the idea was rapturously received and Alan passed the medical – but there wasn't a club in Guernsey. How do you learn to fly without an instructor?

The cost of lessons was not a problem, as he had a good job at Tektronix, testing oscilloscopes while his wife, Jacqueline, was working at the airport (they lived at La Planque Lane, at the bottom of which sits the current aero club).

He contacted the Jersey Aero Club and it sent over David Esterton in a J1N Auster. Alan's first lesson was on 10 July 1966 and that date will do as well as any to mark the beginning of the Guernsey Aero Club.

A second lesson followed, the next weekend, but the week after that the excitement was ratcheted up still further when David turned up in a Cessna 150.

That continued until eventually the Jersey club could no longer spare the instructor and the thrilling new aircraft, but this was to be a blessing in disguise. In February 1967 who should turn up in the Auster? Only 'Pick' Pickford, who was to become Guernsey's permanent instructor.

With the fledgling club attracting considerable interest, there was one thing missing: premises.

Fortunately, the airport commandant, Jimmy Walters, was eager to help, providing a two-room concrete building right by the apron, free of charge. That served its purpose for a while, before the club moved into a wooden hut in the car park, next to those that housed Jersey Airlines. After that, the club built its own headquarters 'down near Lewis Martin's hangar'.

In 1970 Alan, with Jacqueline and their three children, emigrated to Australia and settled in Adelaide, where they have remained ever since. The initial promise of two jobs, one with Tektronix's Australian branch and another with the electronics giant, Philips, came to nothing, but Alan found himself selling the Encyclopaedia Britannica and rose to the position of manager.

One of the things that appealed to him about Australia was the vast amount of space available for flying and he continued with his hobby – or passion, as it clearly is. He bought a military-version L-4 Piper Cub and painted it in its original US livery. Then he had a Cessna 150, before indulging his interest in ultralights (perhaps better known to many as microlights), describing the early ones as 'Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines with a lawnmower engine'.

While at first the restrictions placed on these single-seaters were frustrating – low altitude, no crossing roads and certainly no flying over residential areas – gradually the power increased and the authorities relaxed the limitations. Alan now has a single-seater 'like a Piper Cub' and he and his fellow enthusiasts have their own 180-acre airfield with four runways and 20 hangars.