I lost five loved ones during the five main years of the writing of this series (2004-2009): four dear friends and my father:

• Gerald Manwaring
• Richard Wilde
• Tim Sebastian
• Simon Miles
• Mary Palmer

The Windsmith Elegy is dedicated to them. May they find rest in the Afterlands.

In a wider sense, The Windsmith Elegy is in honour of all brave aviators who dedicated their lives - and often paid the ultimate sacrifice - in the name of flight and freedom.

High Flight


Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds...and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of...wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew.

And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.


John McGee, WW2 Spitfire pilot