A PERSONAL SKETCH OF HAWKER

Taihape Daily Times, 24 May 1919, Page 4

A PERSONAL SKETCH OF HAWKER

A member of the staff of the "Taihape Daily Times” has received 1 the following vignette of Hawker from a friend who travelled with the noted airman before he achieved distinction in the flying world:—When I travelled steerage to England lin 1931 to see the great world and the King and Queen crowned, Hawker and his mate wore follow passengers, and we rvere thrown together very closely. He was then a motor mechanic and chauffeur, and said he had exhausted all the possibilities of motoring in the way of thrills and driven as close to the edge as possible and lived—and -was now going into the air. Before I. left England the next year ho was already in the first flight of British airmen. I saw him after he -vron the "Daily Mail” £IOOO for the first flight round Britain in a seaplane, and he was just the .same laughing, friendly Hawker who "pigged” is in the- steerage of the old Otranto. Ono would give a good deal to know that this fine Ausk* 1 tralian was safe and well to-night.