XH558 to flight has confirmed that
working engineering heritage is able
to communicate with the public on
several levels: telling the historical
story, exemplifying innovation, inspiring
the young, and generating pride in
successful endeavour.
The Merchant Taylors’ contribution
I’d like to think that every OMT is able to
identify aspects of their life that they can
attribute to experiences gained during
their time at Merchant Taylors’. For me,
these include an interest in physics, a
career in computing, a love of aviation
and a certain ability on the shooting
range. It’s the combination of these
that led to the vision of a flying Vulcan
becoming reality.
I owe a huge debt to teachers Jim
Clark, Roger Greene, Leslie Robotham
and Harris Thorning, who between them
lit the sparks of interest in Maths and
Physics in the Lower Sixth that led me to
a scholarship to St John’s Oxford and a
First in Physics. Additionally, Jim Clark’s
Sunday afternoon sorties to use an
Elliott 803 computer (1,000 instructions
per second, paper tape input-output!)
taught me how to program a computer –
launching me down a path which led to
a 23-year career in IT with IBM and
Cisco Systems.
The Combined Cadet Force was and
still is a huge contributor to the breadth
of experience at school. My parents’
house in Northwood was under the flight
path from RAF Northolt; now, as then,
my eyes turn skyward whenever I hear an
aeroplane. My mother, as a WAAF just
after the War, had a flight in a Mosquito.
Naturally, at Merchant Taylors’, I joined
the RAF section. Air Experience Flights
gave me a taste of flying, and an appetite
for more, so I applied for and luckily won
an RAF Flying Scholarship – 30 hours of
flying at the long-gone Luton Flying Club.
At the age of 17, I was infected by the
aviation bug; it’s never left me.
Through the CCF, I learned to shoot,
and shoot well – ending up as Captain of
Shooting for the year that the school won
the Public School Aggregate at Bisley.
I found rifle shooting easy, and by the
age of 17 I had added the more difficult
sport of target pistol shooting to my
portfolio. (Before I left Merchant Taylors’,
I was legally the proud owner of a 0.22”
semi-automatic pistol – imagine that
nowadays!) I continued pistol shooting all
through university, where I was Captain of
OU Pistol Club, and thereafter at County
level wherever I lived. In 1997, after the
Dunblane massacre, the government
unnecessarily took our target pistols
away: I lost my sport. I was casting around
for something to fill the gap when the idea
occurred to spend some time looking into
the feasibility of returning the Vulcan to
flight. So at least two good things have
emerged from the horror of Dunblane -
Andy Murray winning Wimbledon, and a
flying Vulcan.
The breadth of the Merchant Taylors’
experience, and the confidence and
determination resulting, have enabled me
on so many occasions to grasp success
from likely failure – and in the case of
the Vulcan, have confounded those
who thought the goal of a flying Vulcan
unreachable.
I contend that all the people who
have supported the Vulcan project owe
her return to flight in no small way to
Merchant Taylors’ School.
Robert Pleming
For more information about
Vulcan XH558, please visit:
© Robert Pleming October 2013
