Nigel & Sylvia

01 / 29

Nigel's settling into Tolpits well letter

Stories and memories

Nigel Wyndham Hewitt Page-Roberts came into the world at 6am weighing just 2lbs 3oz, the same as a bag of sugar. The midwife swung into action, plunging the baby into a cold bath as shock stimulation before wrapping him in cotton wool and placing him in a hat box with a hot water bottle. She fed him a little brandy through a sterilised fountain pen she’d fashioned into a makeshift pipette and thankfully, he stirred to life.

Nigel: “Good manners were very important to Dad. We were taught to open doors for grownups, allowing ladies to go through first, and to write thank you notes for any gift or after a visit to someone’s house. A hefty smack with the back of a clothes brush awaited any misdemeanours though. I think I had more wallops than Jim who seemed to get away with much more, being Dad’s favourite.

Sport was a big thing in our family as Dad was very accomplished in many. He tried to make cricketers out of me and Jim, getting us to do his special grip exercises and throwing a ball from hand to hand to toughen up our palms. As I got older, I came to really enjoy cricket as much as he did, but I would never be as good as him. I also took up golf at school and was keen to get better as Dad played off scratch, but he refused (rather unreasonably I thought) to take me out on a course, explaining rather grumpily that “It’s not a boy’s game.” Heaven knows how I was supposed to improve!

Aviation and pioneering flight was in its heyday when we were kids, and aeroplanes became an obsession for me and my brother. Jim had a lifelong affinity with flying and actually went on to be a pilot in WW2, and it all started with the model planes we made to scale which we’d then try and fly. The British manufacturer Handley Page was my personal favourite. I knew everything about them and started collecting anything to do with their planes.

Mum and Dad had given me the middle names of Wyndham Hewitt in honour of my godfather and uncle, Wyn. I think we were both delighted and it seemed to create a special bond between the two of us. He sent me wonderful presents and nick-nacks he knew I’d like as we shared very similar passions and interests. They usually involved working parts and were always something to do with planes, cars and engineering."

Furzie Close was founded in a large house in 1909 by its first headmaster Mr P Stubbs whose sole aim was ‘to make the boys fit to run the empire’ through a strict and tough regime, and it was not a happy place. Jim remembers Stubbs as a deeply unpleasant and sadistic man with a fondness for caning the boys on a whim: “Certainly my bottom was often decorated with parallel welts of red and blue. My only escape from his cruelty came in the form of a crow’s nest atop a tall pine tree in the grounds. I’d climb to isolation and enjoy the view of the Needles off the Isle of Wight and the large ships coming and going on the Solent.” Nigel suffered the same fate in the headmaster’s office but he refused to react or let out the smallest squeal just to spite the wretched man, and he never mentioned it in letters home. With bullying like this coming from the top it was hardly surprising to hear it filtered down to the worst kind of boy. Nigel was once tied to a tree during a game of cowboys and Indians and left for hours in the cold with no one knowing where he was, and then he was punished for going AWOL.

While at Lagonda Wyndham Hewitt Ltd, Ni convinced the foreman he knew how to drive – “I learned on our farm” – and that he should be allowed to drive a Lagonda around the block since it was important for his job that he understood everything about them. He left the garage when (thankfully out of sight) he shot out of a road junction having hit the accelerator instead of the brake as the car had US style controls. With no chance to check first, he instinctively pulled a harsh left turn in an absolute cold sweat and had the luck of the devil when nothing was coming the other way. He had never been so relieved to get out of a car and pass the keys back with quaking hand, the foreman remaining none the wiser.

The proposal

Having met at Wyn's cocktail party, within a matter of months, Nigel planned to propose at the Bertram Mills Circus and thought the scenic railway would be just the place. He was about to declare his love when Sylvia unexpectedly hid her head in his lap for the whole ride as she was scared of heights. He had to regroup and thought perhaps the ghost train would work. There was a tremendous clatter on the rails, and she only just heard him pop the question: “Will you marry me, Darling?” She replied with a beaming smile above the din: “Of course I will!” As they clambered out of the trolley car, she was very confused; he looked glum and said not another word about the momentous occasion. It was at least an hour later after a bit of probing that she discovered he hadn’t heard her say “Yes!” He thought she’d said: “Don’t be so silly.”

A close shave

Nigel worked in Crolls tool room, honing his craft. No one could touch him when it came to machining a part quickly and for fun in the evenings he made parts from scratch that had failed on the critical American machine tool to keep the vitally important aero engine production going (no spares being available). He was permanently exhausted though. One night, after a particularly gruelling day, he ran himself a bath and sunk into the heavenly waters to soothe his tired bones when a bombing raid over Southampton docks started. Off went the siren and he just didn’t have the energy to get dressed and go down into the shelter. The next thing he heard was a bomb hitting a nearby building, and the bath left the floor with him in it. It was the closet shave he ever had in any bathroom.

Joyriding in the Klemm Bat

Jim P-R remembers the day well: "We were, through the auspices of Wyn, due to fly with Smithy from Croydon that time in 1932, but the tail skid on his aeroplane had broken. An alternative wooden one was tried out, but also broke, so another unnamed pilot took us up for a trip over London in the Klemm Bat. Incidentally, there were no runways at Croydon; the only concrete was laid just outside the hangars. The field was very wet and muddy on the day Nigel, June and I flew, and it must have been windy as one of the ground crew had to hold on to a wingtip. With caps back to front, we held on for grim death as there was no seat belt and it was very windy in the passenger cockpit. The Klemm Bat was German and one that Hitler secretly used for training his pilots for WW2."