His sense of delight at being allowed to fly this remarkable aircraft is quite tangible, and he obviously regards the Spitfire with great affection: "The Spit is beginning to feel a friendly aeroplane. Working so closely with Geoffrey has made First Light a unique experience both for me as a director and I think, for the audience. Wellum had done his Royal Air Force training on de Havilland Tiger Moth biplanes and North American Harvard monoplanes. This was a huge task in itself, going through around 50 hours worth of unused and unseen material, but it was great that we could give some of this footage the light of day at last!

First Light: Original Edition (Penguin World War II Collection) First Light: Original Edition (Penguin World War II Collection)

I found it hard to put the book down late at night, which brought forth a moan from my wife about turning the lamp off or else! Looking back on it all now, I can't believe we shot the whole drama, including the flying, in just nine days.We celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stories, traditions and living cultures; and we pay our respects to Elders past and present. When interviewed many years later by Michael Parkinson, Parkinson asked him about how the pressure of playing top-level cricket, to which Miller gave the immortal, and precise, answer: 'Pressure is a Messerschmitt up your arse, playing cricket is not. Published for the first time more than fifty years after the war, First Lightis Geoffrey Wellum's gripping memoir of his experiences as a fighter pilot. To read the events of WWII through the eyes, ears, and feelings of someone so young, so vulnerable, and brave is something that is rarely found in published histories of war. First edition hard back binding in publisher's original maroon cloth covered boards, blocked and lettered gilt back, illustrated end papers.

First Light: The True Story of the Boy Who Became a Man in

Wellum's account, I want to thank him for helping to make real in my mind, the stresses that war places on you. It's reasonably played and in a way it's interesting to hear the actual pilot's comments in between the bits of movie.I found the description of Wellum's flying training amusing and interesting and the air battles are, as one would expect, utterly exhilarating. This is action as it happened, told to you by somebody who was there, with a down-to-earth, matter-of-fact tone. Meantime, our real Spit took off with the pilot delivering Boy Wellum's point of view (by way of a specially designed camera mounting on his flying helmet). To prove to himself that he had actually done something with his life, [15] Wellum took his wartime notebooks and wrote a longhand memoir of his time as a Spitfire pilot, that he never intended for publication.

First Light: The Phenomenal Fighter Pilot Bestseller (The First Light: The Phenomenal Fighter Pilot Bestseller (The

It was the first, first-person account I'd ever read of the Battle of Britain, and my heart ached for the author (the youngest pilot to take part in the Battle). What's more, he was an old man whose marriage had broken down and who had withdrawn from his old life.Thrust into combat almost immediately, Wellum finds himself flying several sorties a day, caught up in terrifying dogfights with German Me 109s. After successfully completing the course he then went on to fly the North American Harvard at RAF Little Rissington with 6FTS. This gentleman wrote of his own experiences at the age of 17 as RAF pilot in war action with a genuine and moving personal account from signing up to action. Firstly, it is the memoir of a boy growing into manhood while flying Spitfires during the Battle of Britain.