He was grateful to the members for inviting him as their guest and he saw amongst them several people who had known him before. He hoped that they had not exposed too much of his past. He had had quite a connection with the air, however, although he did not think by any stretch of imagination he could include himself in the toast of the Royal Air Force Association "To those who have flown."
Today they were living in a rather advanced age but when he had joined the Service flying was not so univ-eral as it was at the present. He was extremely interested in the air though and among his exploits was the task of flying over the German lines during the Great War in a machine known as a BE2C. This had not been his most exciting experience, however. as he had once flown along the coast of North Africa with a Spanish pilot who, in spite is daredevil antics, was really a g fellow.
His connection with war, he added, had taught him that today it was a really unpleasant business. They had to face the fact that war was very much talked about now and with it there came all its unpleasant facts. To the members of the Royal Air Force Association the word "war" had a different meaning, for during 1914- 18 when pilots and enemies used to fight each other heroically, they always treated each other to a certain amount of chivalry, which, he believed, was not yet dead. He recalled the words of a British general during the Marlborough wars who asked his French enemy to fire first and was met with the reply "Non, aprez vous, m'sieur." That spirit fortunately still remained and he felt that the country's enemies would always be treated by the R.A.F. in the same way
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.