Battle of Britain incident which led to pioneering eye-surgery to benefit over 200 million patients world-wide

Series of pages showing an aviation painting develop as it happens

"One Ran up the Clock"

by John Howard Worsley : Number 1

This is the 18" x 14" "pilot-painting" produced as a working visual for a 4ft x 3ft canvas to depict the Battle of Britain action when on the 15th August 1940 over Winchester, Flying Officer "Mouse" Cleaver of 601 Sqn. sustained injuries in which shattered pieces of perspex entered both his eyes. F/O Cleaver immediately lost his left eye and was temporarily blinded in the other. Although his Hurricane continued to fly well, he had to bale out and came to earth near Twyford village in Hampshire.

First I built a 1/24th scale model and photographed it to get the desired angle

This was scaled onto my 18" x 14" canvas and the pilot-painting prepared:

It was Harold Ridley, a young surgeon at St. Thomas' Hospital London, who discovered that shards of perspex remaining in this and other wounded pilots' eyes, were inert and caused no infection to living human tissue. From this discovery came the seeds of an inspiration, involving I.C.I. makers of the perspex who generously made their formula available and the pioneering British firm Rayners who made the first artificial lens which was implanted in a patient's eye on the 29th November 1940. Since that time, more than 200 million patients world-wide have had successful artificial lens-implants including Mouse Cleaver, whose remaining eye was to benefit thirty years after the Battle of Britain.

The final painting is to be presented at the Science Museum London 29th November 1999, the 50th anniversary of the first artificial lens-implant operation

SOME PROBLEMS : October 6th 1999

As I have too little space in my studio, I have arranged to paint the final 4ft x 3ft canvas in full view of the public at the Frontline Aviation Museum, Sandown Airport, Isle of Wight. I shall be adding pages to this website as I go to show the progress and problems incurred. My initial problem was to build a special easel to take the canvas. This has now been done and it is currently in situ at the museum. I shall be taking film (not digital) photos as I go, so there will be a slight delay in my updates as I have to get the pictures developed.

One major problem is to obtain photographic reference of how Winchester looks (looked) from a height of around 7000ft. Does anyone have or can tell me where to get such pics, preferably looking south with Winchester Cathedral in view? Alternatively, is there some kind aeroplane pilot who could fly me over the area on a fine day soon? I could reward with an original 18" x 14" oil painting of his/her aircraft!

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