t know this,
and in April (I think) in some trepidation I got over that step in my
progress. I confess that I went four times round Brooklands with my hand
on the switch before I could make up my mind to do the deed, and of
course when I did so, I found there was nothing in it, and realized the
delight of coming down without the noise of the engine in my ears. So
much for learning to fly.'

Brooklands was a well-known place; large crowds of people had often
visited it to see the motor races; and it was near London; so that from
the first it attracted sportsmen and aeroplane designers. It became the
experimental ground of the British aircraft industry. Among its early
tenants were the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company, founded by the
late Sir George White of Bristol, and commonly known as the Bristol
Company; Messrs. Martin and Handasyde, the makers of the Martinsyde
machines; Mr. A. V. Roe; the Scottish Aviation Company, with their Avis
monoplanes; Mr. J. V. Neal, who, in the endeavour to avoid the Wrights'
patents, produced a curious biplane with a new system of control, and
many others. Sheds were occupied by Mr. Douglas Graham Gilmour, one of
the finest pilots in his day that this country had produced, who was
killed in an accident at Richmond, and by Mr. F. P. Raynham, who became
notable as a test-pilot. Many sportsmen rented sheds and tried their
hands at building machines. Mrs. Hewlett, the wife of the novelist,
having learned to fly, started a school at Brooklands in partnership
with M. Blondeau, a French engineer and pilot. Her son, like the
swallows, was taught to fly by his mother. By the middle of 1911 a whole
village of sheds had grown up. Most of the tenants were men of means,
but they spent so much money on their experiments that they had very
little left for the amenities of life. Mr. C. G. Grey remembers men, the
possessors of comfortable incomes, who lived for years on thirty or
forty shillings a week, and spent the rest on their aeroplanes. It was
a society like the early Christians; it practised fellowship and
community of goods. To the eyes of a casual visitor there was no
apparent difference between the owner of an aeroplane and his mechanics;
all alike lived in overalls, except in hot weather, when overalls gave
place to pyjamas. If any one lacked tools or materials he borrowed them
from another shed; they were lent with goodwill, though the owner knew
that his only chance of seeing them again