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GuideCover (#u32e4a592-f89e-5375-a819-c6584a9cfeae)Contents (#u7f41a8cb-7b60-5af4-b118-23eb5b4a29ca)Chapter 1 (#ud0400943-4653-5db3-8dd9-d189e2df6d1e)
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Dedication
This book is dedicated to Sam & Phoebe, who are nearly always good.
With love, David x
HarperCollins Children’s Books presents
Special thanks to Charlotte Sluter and Laura Clouting at the Imperial War Museum & Tim Granshaw, Matt Jones, Andy Annabel and Gerry Jones at Goodwood Aerodrome & John Nichol, RAF Consultant.
This is the tale of a boy called Jack and his grandfather.
Once upon a time Grandpa was a Royal Air Force pilot.
During World War II he flew a Spitfire fighter plane.
Our story is set in 1983. This was a time before the internet and mobile telephones and computer games that could be played for weeks on end. In 1983 Grandpa was already an old man but his grandson Jack was just twelve years old.
This is Jack’s mum and dad. Mum, Barbara, works at the cheese counter in the local supermarket. Dad, Barry, is an accountant.
Raj is the local newsagent.
Miss Verity is the history teacher at Jack’s school.
Detectives Beef and Bone are a crime-fighting duo.
This is the town’s vicar, Reverend Hogg.
This security guard works at the Imperial War Museum in London.
Miss Swine is the matron of the local old folk’s home, Twilight Towers.
Some of the elderly residents there include Mrs Trifle, the Major and the Rear Admiral.
These are some of the nurses who work at Twilight Towers – Nurse Rose, Nurse Daisy and Nurse Blossom.
This is Twilight Towers.
This is a map of the town.
Prologue
One day Grandpa began to forget things. It was little things at first. The old man would make himself a cup of tea and forget to drink it. Before long he would have lined up a dozen cups of cold tea on his kitchen table. Or he would run a bath and forget to turn off the taps, flooding his neighbour’s flat downstairs. Or he would leave the house with the express purpose of buying a stamp, but return home with seventeen boxes of cornflakes. Grandpa didn’t even like cornflakes.
Over time, Grandpa started to forget bigger things. What year it was. Whether his long-deceased wife Peggy was alive or not. One day he even stopped recognising his own son.
Most startling of all was that Grandpa completely forgot he was an old age pensioner. The old man had always told his little grandson Jack stories of his adventures in the Royal Air Force all those years ago in World War II. Now these stories became more and more real to him. In fact, instead of just telling these stories, he began living them out. The present faded into scratchy black and white as the past burst into glorious colour. It didn’t matter where Grandpa was, or what he was doing, or whom he was with. In his mind he was a dashing young pilot behind the controls of his Spitfire fighter plane.
All the people in Grandpa’s life found this very difficult to understand.
Except one person.
His grandson Jack.
Like all children the boy loved to play, and it seemed to him that his grandpa was playing.
Jack realised all you had to do was play too.
1
Spam à la Custard
Jack was a child who was happiest alone in his bedroom. A naturally shy boy, he didn’t have many friends. Instead of spending his days playing football in the park with all the other kids from school, he would stay inside assembling his prized collection of model aeroplanes. His favourites were from World War II – the Lancaster bomber, the Hurricane and of course his grandfather’s old plane, the now legendary Spitfire. On the Nazi side, he had models of the Dornier bomber, the Junkers and the Spitfire’s deadly nemesis, the Messerschmitt.
With great care Jack would paint his model planes, then fix them to the ceiling with fishing wire. Suspended in the air, they looked like they were in the middle of a dramatic dogfight. At night, he would stare up at them from his bunk bed and drift off to sleep dreaming he was an RAF flying ace, just like his grandfather once was. The boy kept a picture of Grandpa by his bed. He was a young man in the old black and white photograph. It was taken sometime in 1940 at the height of the Battle of Britain. Grandpa was standing proudly in his RAF uniform.
In his dreams, Jack would go Up, up and away, just like his grandfather had. The boy would have given everything he had, all of his past and all of his future, for one moment behind the controls of Grandpa’s legendary Spitfire.
In his dreams he would be a hero.
In his life he felt like a zero.
The problem was that each day was exactly the same. He would go to school every morning, do his homework every afternoon, and eat his dinner in front of the television every night. If only he wasn’t so shy. If only he had lots of friends. If only he could break free from his boring life.
The highlight of Jack’s week was Sunday. That was the day his parents would leave him with his grandfather. Before the old man had become too confused, he would take his grandson on the most magical days out. The Imperial War Museum was the place they loved to visit the most. It was not too far away, in London, and was a treasure trove of all things military. Together the pair would marvel at the old warplanes hanging from the ceiling of the Great Room. The legendary Spitfire was, of course, their absolute favourite. Seeing her always brought Grandpa’s memories of the war flooding back. He would share these stories with his grandson, who devoured every word. On the long bus journey home, Jack would bombard the old man with hundreds and hundreds of questions…
“What’s the fastest speed you ever went in your Spitfire?”
“Did you ever have to parachute out?”
“Which is the better fighter plane, the Spitfire or the Messerschmitt?”
Grandpa loved answering him. Often a crowd of children would gather around the old man on the top deck of the bus home to listen to these incredible tales.
“It was the summer of 1940,” Grandpa would begin. “The height of the Battle of Britain. One night I was flying my Spitfire over the English Channel. I had become separated from my squadron. My fighter plane had taken a pounding in a dogfight. Now I was limping back to base. Then just behind me I heard machine guns. RAT TAT TAT! It was a Nazi Messerschmitt. Right on my tail! Again. RAT TAT TAT! It was just the two of us alone over the sea. That night would be an epic fight to the death…”
Grandpa enjoyed nothing more than sharing stories of his World War II adventures. Jack would listen intently; every little detail fascinated him. Over time the boy became something of an expert on these old fighter planes. Grandpa would tell his grandson that he would make “an excellent pilot one day”. This always made the boy burst with pride.
Then later in the day, if ever an old black and white war film was on the television, the pair would snuggle up on the sofa together in Grandpa’s house and watch it. Reach for the Sky was one they watched over and over again. This classic told the story of a pilot who lost both his legs in a horrific accident before World War II. Despite this, Douglas Bader went on to become a legendary flying ace. Rainy Saturday afternoons were made for Reach for the Sky, or One of Our Aircraft is Missing, or The Way to the Stars or A Matter of Life and Death. For Jack there was nothing better.
Sadly the food at Grandpa’s home was always diabolical. He called it “rations”, as he had during the war. The old man only ever ate food from tins. For dinner he would select a couple at complete random from his larder and empty them into a pan together.
The use of the French words gave it an air of poshness it did not deserve. Fortunately the boy didn’t come for the food.
World War II was the most important time in Grandpa’s life. It was a time when brave Royal Air Force pilots like him fought for their country in the Battle of Britain. The Nazis were planning an invasion, a plot they called ‘Operation Sea Lion’. However, without being able to secure power over the skies to protect their troops on the ground, the Nazis were never able to put their plan into action. Day after day, night after night, RAF pilots like Grandpa risked their lives to keep the people of Britain free from being captured by the Nazis.
So instead of reading a book to his grandson at bedtime, the old man would tell the boy of his real-life adventures during the war. His stories were more thrilling than any you could find in a book.
“One more tale, Grandpa! Please!” the boy begged on one such night. “I want to hear about when you were shot down by the Luftwaffe and had to crash-land into the English Channel!”
“It’s late, young Jack,” Grandpa replied. “You go to sleep. I promise I will tell you that tale and plenty more in the morning.”
“But—”
“I’ll meet you in your dreams, Squadron Leader,” said the old man as he kissed Jack tenderly on the forehead. ‘Squadron Leader’ was his nickname for his grandson. “I’ll see you in the skies. Up, up and away.”
“Up, up and away!” the boy repeated before drifting off to sleep in Grandpa’s spare room dreaming he too was a fighter pilot. Time spent with Grandpa couldn’t have been more perfect.
But that was all about to change.
2
Slippers
Over time Grandpa’s mind began transporting him back to his days of glory more and more. By the time our story begins, the old man completely believed that it was still World War II. Even though the war had ended decades before.
Grandpa had become very confused, a condition that affects some elderly people. It was serious, and sadly there was no known cure. Instead it seemed likely it would worsen over time, until one day Grandpa might not even be able to remember his own name.
But as ever in life, wherever there is tragedy, you can often find comedy. In recent times the old man’s condition had led to some very funny moments. On Bonfire Night, Grandpa insisted everyone go down to the air-raid shelter at once when the next-door neighbours started letting off fireworks in the garden. Or there was the time when Grandpa cut a wafer-thin chocolate mint into four pieces with his penknife and shared it out with the family because of “rationing”.
Most memorable of all was the time Grandpa decided that a shopping trolley at the supermarket was really a Lancaster bomber. He hurtled down the aisles on a top-secret mission, hurling huge bags of flour. These ‘bombs’ exploded everywhere – over the food, over the tills, even covering the haughty supermarket manageress from head to toe.
She looked like a powdery ghost. The clean-up operation lasted many weeks. Grandpa was banned from the supermarket for life.
Sometimes Grandpa’s confusion could be more upsetting. Jack had never met his grandmother. This was because she had died nearly forty years ago. It had been one night towards the end of the war in a Nazi bombing raid over London. At the time Jack’s father was a newborn baby. However, when Jack stayed at his grandfather’s tiny flat, the old man would sometimes call for his ‘Darling Peggy’ as if she was in the next room. Tears would well in the boy’s eyes. It was heartbreaking.
Despite everything, Grandpa was an incredibly proud man. For him everything had to be ‘just so’.
He was always impeccably dressed in a uniform of double-breasted blazer, crisp white shirt and neatly pressed grey slacks. A maroon, silver and blue striped Royal Air Force tie was forever knotted neatly around his neck. As was the fashion with many World War II pilots, he favoured a dashing flying ace’s moustache. It was a thing of wonder. The moustache was so long it connected to his sideburns. It was like a beard but with the chin bit missing. Grandpa would twizzle the ends of his moustache for hours, until they stuck out at just the right angle.
The one thing that would give Grandpa’s confused state of mind away was his choice of footwear. Slippers. The old man no longer wore shoes. Now he always forgot to put them on. Whatever the weather, in rain, sleet and snow, he would be sporting his brown checked slippers.
Of course Grandpa’s eccentric behaviour made the grown-ups worry. Sometimes Jack would pretend to go to bed, but instead creep out of his bedroom and sit at the top of the stairs in his pyjamas. There he would listen to his mother and father downstairs in the kitchen, discussing Grandpa. They would use big words that Jack didn’t understand to describe the old man’s ‘condition’. Then Mum and Dad would argue about Grandpa being put in an old folk’s home. The boy hated hearing his grandfather talked about in this way, as if he was some sort of problem. However, being only twelve years old, Jack felt powerless to do anything.
But none of this stopped Jack adoring hearing stories about the old man’s wartime adventures, even though these tales had become so real to Grandpa now that the pair would act them out. They were Boy’s Own adventures, stories of derring-do.
Grandpa had an ancient wooden record player the size of a bath. On it he would play booming orchestral music, with the volume as high as it would go. Military bands were his favourite, and together Jack and his grandfather would listen to huge classical pieces like Rule, Britannia!, Land of Hope and Glory or the Pomp and Circumstance Marches way into the night. Two old armchairs would become their cockpits. As the music soared, so did they in their imaginary fighter planes. A Spitfire for Grandpa and a Hurricane for Jack. Up, up and away, they would go. Together they would fly high above the clouds, outwitting enemy aircraft. Every Sunday night the pair of flying aces would win the Battle of Britain, without even leaving the old man’s tiny flat.
Together Grandpa and Jack inhabited their own world and had countless imaginary adventures.
However, the night our story starts, a real-life adventure was about to begin.
3
A Waft of Cheese
This particular evening, Jack was asleep in his bedroom, dreaming he was a World War II pilot, as he did every night. He was sitting behind the controls of his Hurricane, taking on a squadron of deadly Messerschmitts, when he heard the distinct sound of a telephone ringing.
RING RING RING RING.
That was strange, he thought, there weren’t any telephones on board 1940s fighter planes. Yet still the telephone kept ringing.
RING RING RING RING.
The boy woke up with a start. As he sat up in bed he banged his head on his model Lancaster bomber that was suspended from the ceiling.
“Ow!” he cried. He checked the time on the nickel-plated RAF pilot’s watch his grandfather had given him.
2:30am.
Who on earth was calling the house at this hour?
The boy leaped down from his top bunk and opened his bedroom door. Downstairs in the hall, he could hear his mother talking on the telephone.
“No, he hasn’t turned up here,” she said.
After a few moments Mum spoke again. Her familiar tone convinced Jack that she must be talking to his father. “So no sign of the old man at all? Well what are you going to do, Barry? I know he’s your father! But you can’t stay out all night looking for him!”
Jack couldn’t remain silent for a moment longer. From the top of the stairs he cried, “What’s happened to Grandpa?”
Mum looked up. “Oh, well done, Barry, now Jack’s woken up!” She put her hand over the receiver. “Go back to bed this instant, young man! You’ve got school in the morning!”
“I don’t care!” replied the boy with defiance. “What’s happened to Grandpa?”
Mum returned to the telephone call. “Barry, call me back in two minutes. It’s all going off here now and all!” With that she slammed down the receiver.
“What’s happened?” demanded the boy again as he ran down the stairs to join his mother.
Mum sighed theatrically as if all the woes of the world were on her shoulders. She did that a lot. It was at this exact moment that Jack realised he could smell cheese. Not just normal cheese. Smelly cheese, blue cheese, runny cheese, MOULDY CHEESE, cheesy cheese. His mother worked at the cheese counter of the local supermarket, and wherever she went, a strong waft of cheese came with her.
Both stood in the hall in their nightclothes, Jack in his stripy blue pyjamas, and his mother in her pink fluffy nightgown. Her hair was in curlers and she had thick smears of face cream on her cheeks, forehead and nose. She often left it on overnight. Jack wasn’t sure exactly why. Mum thought of herself as quite a beauty, and often claimed to be the ‘glamorous face of cheese’, if such a thing was possible.
Mum flicked on the light and they both blinked for a moment at the sudden brightness.
“Your grandpa’s gone missing again!”
“Oh no!”
“Oh yes!” The woman sighed once more. It was clear she was worn out by the old man. Sometimes she would even roll her eyes at Grandpa’s war stories, as if she was bored. This bothered Jack greatly. Grandpa’s stories were infinitely more exciting than being told about the week’s bestselling cheese. “Me and your father were woken up by a phone call around midnight.”
“From who?”
“His neighbour downstairs, you know, that newsagent man…”
After his big house had become too much for him, Grandpa had moved last year to a little flat above a shop. Not just any shop. A newsagent’s shop. Not just any newsagent’s shop. Raj’s.
