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

Flight Over Winchester: Number 3 in a series of pages showing an aviation painting develop as it happens

"One Ran up the Clock"

by John Howard Worsley : Number 3

Flight over Winchester

As mentioned in my previous page, I had reached a stage where I needed to see what Winchester looked like from the air. I spent a day in the city and visited the excellent public records building where I was able to take a couple of snap-shots of an Ordnance Survey photo made in 1947. The result, taken perpendicularly, was not entirely what I required but it gave me a feel for the general street layout and surrounding fields back in the forties. By chance, I had just met Mike Hutton who had kindly offered to fly me over the city and it was arranged to happen on the next suitable day which turned out to be the 12th Oct. Angela and I made our way to Popham Airfield where we met some very friendly flyers and club members in their charming clubhouse. Two flights were made in a Piper Cherokee and I took a series of photos and video. The second trip was made mainly to get the video shots and as the day was just just starting to bubble up some broken cloud, we flew amongst ethereal silver banks with exciting glimpses of the ground below. It was a fantastic experience for which I shall be ever greatful to Mike and his wife Linda.

Having got the pictures developed, I chose the best one and cut it into quarters, each of which were enlarged by photocopying to A3 size. These were then butted together and I had a good basis for an overlay tracing onto the canvas later.
Note: The scene is looking south into the light, so much of the detail of buildings is lost but you can easily make out the railway line at right running south and the trialgular nature of the City's outskirts.

Click here to see the preliminary stages of the large painting

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