Had a great time today with good friends Rob Guildford and Edgil Dauphinee.

Rob of course many of you know as a member of our club, but "edge" as he is known is probably a stranger to most of you.

Edge, in his 90's, flew professionally all his life and has had a colorful and wonderfully interesting life.

Rob and I always go to Stanley for their labour day weekend show, but this year was special as Edge came along.  He had been a flight instructor for three years based at Stanley, training students in Fleet Finches until he was shipped overseas as a combat pilot in 1944, where he wound up flying spitfires in Belgium.

Even though he flew almost entirely in NS after his wartime career, edge had not been back to stanley in 67 years.  Today was the day he returned to find of course absolutely none of the things he remembered left standing.

but the highlight for us was finding and visiting the home he had rented through his time teaching there, about 8km this side of the airport.  Edge was able to direct us right there and we got out of the car to find a lady in her yard who immediately remembered the name and excitedly called her 82 year old husband outside to chat with us.  A terrific visit!

and of course we got to enjoy the planes and people at the airport. what a fun day!

1.  Edge and Rob at the stanley entrance where a new sign commemorates the flying school which operated there 1941-1944 and trained 1093 pilots.

2.  Edge (left) with mr. and mrs. Robert Clarke of Clarksville, near Stanley.  Mr. Clarke's parents rented this home to edge and his wife through most of his time at Stanley.

Due to severe gas rationing at the time Edge could not waste what gas he could get driving home for lunch, so he regularly flew one of the fleet finches to a field right in back of the house for his lunch.  Plenty of gas for the airplanes, edge said, and he could chalk the flight up to short field training.  a very interesting man to talk to with some wonderful stories!

hey, you got my bald spot with that bloody iphone. 

yeah, I know what you're gonna say now, what else is there but bald spot. 

I'm not 100% sure, but I think that Edge flew with my Father-in-Law during the war, or perhaps while they were in training before going to England.  I do recall my Father-in-Law speaking of Edge.