MONUMENTS OF AVIATORS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 195, 28 July 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

MONUMENTS OF AVIATORS.

WHFHE THEY MAY BE SEEN. Some curious monuments —and som<? others pathetic—are to be found in various parts of Britar.i giving details of happenings to aviators. A singular memorial recording the first aerial journey to England may be seen in a field midway between the hamlets of High Cross and Rownoy Abbey, in Hertfordshire, at a spot called Stondon End. The rustics call it the •' Balloon Stone." It is a rough block of sandstone. surrounded by an iron railing, and the inscription tells how on Sept. 17th, Vincent Lunardi, "the nr«t aeria' traveller in Britain, mounting from tho artillery ground in Loudon, and traversing the regions of the air for two hours and fifteen minutes, in this spot revisited the earth."

The first aviator to lose his life in England was Percy Pilcher. who, in endeavoured to make a flight with a gliding aeroplane. He started nff in Stanford Parle, the seat of Lord Brave, between Rugby is.id Ma'rket Harbnroiigh, but lie had only travelled 1-">II yards when a sharp gust overturned his machine and he fell 60ft . receiving injuries from which lie died on October 2nd. A monument was erected on the spot where he fell. There is a striking 'cment figure of a nionop'ane in North Fall Meadow, on Dover Heights, in memory of the fiist cross-Channel flight by aeroplane made by Bleriot, July 2oth, 1909, from Calais in thirty-seven minutes. And down on Dover front stands a bronze statue of tho Hon. C. S. Rolls, hero of the double flight. June 2nd, 1910, who was killed it Bournemouth a month later, says the "Times." He is represented in his airman's costume, looking with a fateful intensity towards the coast of France. Rolls, it may he added, has m.iother memorial at Monr.HM't!:.

Mrs. M'Strict (to new servant) • '"The lust servant had a habit of jroini; into the parlour with her young man, and sitting thorp the whole ever*, injr. Have you a young man?'' New Housemaid : " Xo, mum: hut 1 might tret one with Mich inducement offered.''