Seventy Summers Ago

G-ACEJ on the beach at Southport in the 1950s.                             (Photographer unknown)

August 2025 marks 70 years since my first flight, a ride in the 1933 de Havilland Fox Moth G-ACEJ operated by Giro Aviation from the beach at Southport, Lancashire. My father handed a ten shilling note to the pilot and he, my cousin Katharine and I clambered into the small cabin for a ten minute flight. I was surprised to find a small window that let us see the helmeted pilot, he appeared older than my father so perhaps it was the owner former Great War pilot Norman Giroux himself flying us. I don’t now remember much else of the flight apart from the coastline stretching away below and being aware of the Gipsy Major in full cry just behind me and I don’t recall the landing so Mr Giroux, if that is who was flying that day, must have greased it on. There have been many flights since then but that was a very good starter.

G-ACEJ was destroyed by fire in 1982 when struck while parked by a Beechcraft Musketeer but is commemorated today in the form of a gorgeous replica marked “G-ACEJ” currently in the care of an owner in Germany.

Ian M Macdonald

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