The Last Letter from Juliet - Melanie Hudson Page 0,10
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Chapter 4
Juliet
1938
A Cornish Christmas
Newspaper Cutting: The Bicester Herald
FREE AEROPLANE FLIGHTS FOR TEN LUCKY READERS!
AIR DISPLAY EXTRAVAGANZA!
Reach for the stars with the one and only
LOUIS CARON FLYING CIRCUS!
Old Bradley’s Field
1st July (for one day only)
2.30 p.m. till dusk
Star Attraction
JULIET CARON
The daredevil darling of the skies and Britain’s finest child star &aerobatic pilot
Admission 1s. Children 6d.
My name is Juliet Caron and although it would be difficult for anyone to believe if they saw me now (age has a dreadful habit of throwing a dust sheet over the vibrancy of youth) I was once the celebrated flying ace and undisputed star of the one and only Louis Caron Flying Circus.
I do not say this to boast, well, maybe a little bit, but to explain how it was that my father taught me to fly almost as quickly as I learned to walk and how, on a bright winter’s afternoon just a few days before Christmas 1938, I found myself soaring one thousand feet above Cornwall in my bright yellow Tiger Moth, looking for angels. It was a simple time in my life. Simple in the way that only those brief years before we know the agony of love, can be. My lungs were exploding with the exuberance of youth and my face was tight against the freezing air. In sum, I was living a life that was just about as alive as it is possible for a human life to be.
But first I must tell you a little of the flying circus, because my childhood was the circus, it moulded those formative days when the personality begins to take shape. My circus years were wonderful years. They were the years I had my parents with me, parents who were – and always would be – my inspiration, my warriors, my rocks.
When I was fourteen a journalist asked me to describe what being part of a flying circus was like. My father stood by me while I thought of my answer. We were in Sam Bryant’s field near Bicester, Oxfordshire, our aircraft lined up side by side, waiting to display. The crowd was arriving and the buzz of expectation bounced in the air while a cornflower blue sky kissed by a soft, silky breeze heralded the chance of a wonderful display. Tongue-tied, I looked at my father, who knelt next to me, and stalled as to what to say. He said to close my eyes and imagine how it feels to fly – to say the first thing that came into my head. The answer I gave was the answer of a child, but I would have given exactly the same answer as an adult, because the euphoria of flying – that feeling of absolute freedom – never left me.
‘Imagine heaven on earth,’ I said, ‘or rather, heaven in the skies. Imagine you’re in a dream and in that dream you somehow shrink down to the size of a doll and strap yourself onto the back of a golden eagle. You cling on to his feathers while he swoops and dives and soars and loops. And then you realise that if you’re very gentle with him and pull lightly on a feather here and there, you can control him a little, and then you’re flying too, every bit and just as naturally as the bird, and every element hits you with a freshness that can’t be matched, every sense is bright and alive. And then the bird dives towards the earth, barely missing the ground, before turning on a hairpin and soaring away. You are not in control at that moment, I think, but you are not in danger either, not so long as he – you – pull up in time. But that’s the best thrill of all – the not completely knowing if you’ll pull out of the dive in time. You simply have to trust, have faith in your judgement and let go of all fear. But you do pull out, because instinct and survival and an understanding of how to fly and how to move through the air kicks in, and you climb higher and take a breath, but not for long, because then you jump off the bird and into your father’s arms and cling on while he spins you around and around and the whole world is no more than a line of spinning colour. And your hair and skirt and legs are flung out at ninety degrees and you know that if he lets you go, you’ll