Bethersden
Note: Needless to say this map only gives the position of Bethersden within the UK. If anybody knows the exact place where Moorhouse crash-landed, this advice will be much appreciated.
BETHERSDEN see also FRIDD FARM
BETHERSDEN: Temporary landing site
NOTES: In his excellent book For Valour, The Air VCs Chas Bowyer tells us this story about William Barnard Rhodes Moorhouse, the first ever recipient of a VC in WW1 for aerial operations:
“The most notable event in 1912 for Moorhouse came with his marriage to Linda B. Morritt. Their honeymoon was spent almost wholly on a typical Moorhouse project – preparation and achievement of a new record flight across the English Channel! After many days of sundry delays due to weather conditions and other minor frustrations, Moorhouse finally set off from Douai in a Breguet biplane on 28 July: carrying as passengers his wife Linda and a news reporter, J. H. Ledeboer. After a 130-miles flight the Breguet eventually descended near Bethesden, Kent but crashed on landing, though without injury to its ‘crew’.
It was the first-ever cross-Channel flight by a pilot carrying two passengers.” Oh yes, without much doubt a most notable way to conduct a honeymoon.
But, why on earth did he elect to take-off from a site so far from the coast? Was a distance record for carrying two passengers also part of the endeavour perhaps?
KEEPING TO TRADITION?
Well, only slightly it must be said. His exploits certainly puts my efforts in the shade. When I became married, (incredibly we still are!), we couldn’t afford a proper honeymoon, electing for a one-night stay in Finchingfield, Essex. Which, it has to be said, is one of the prettiest villages in England.
Along the way from Caxton Hall in Westminster, central London, (Yes, I did manage to arrange this, but please don’t ask how as a bit of deviousness was involved), I decided to pull out all the stops and pulled into Stapleford aerodrome to arrange a flight and really impress my new Australian wife.
It was in a Piper PA-28 (a Cherokee probably) – gosh, how exciting – or so I thought at the time. Afterwards I learnt she had completed thirteen parachute drops in Australia but hadn’t thought it worth mentioning. That put me in my place!
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