Not so Secret Pleasures - Glories of the Shuttleworth Collection

}

22 January 2026

Pete Jenkins

I have been interested and occasionally obsessed with aeroplanes for as long as I can remember. Whilst I was at primary school, I must have read every ‘Biggles’ book by Captain W E Johns that I could get my hands on – nearly 100. In time I realised that some of the planes our hero flew were made up ones that never existed, but over the years I have been able to tick a number of the real ones off my aeroplane nerds list 😊

Biggles learns to Fly, the start of the Bigglesworth saga by Capt W E Johns Photo ©Pete Jenkins

Cadet Jenkins and 114 Squadron ATC at their summer camp probably around 1976. Photo©MOD

My uncle Nev’ sadly now passed was another aeroplane nerd in the family and he fed my aviation interests. Even today I still have many of his 1940 aeroplane books. He was in the Air Training Corps during the war until his call up in ’44. He was keen to join the air force as a pilot, however by the time he was able to join up, pilot recruitment was tailing off, Germany was near surrender and even the war against Japan in the Far East, was deemed to not need further aviators. So, by fluke of circumstances, he ended up in the Royal Navy. His story in the Navy is for another time.

I joined the ATC as soon as I was able, when I was about 13. I joined up with a few mates, but most of them dropped out pretty quickly not being happy with the two evenings a week that the ‘Cadets’ expected us to devote to our training.

There was an element of square bashing, but pretty son opportunities opened up to learn to shoot using (I think) .22 Martini rifles, and then the famous Lee Enfield .303. I enjoyed the target shooting on the military ranges, however what I most looked forward to, was learning to fly.

My first hands on the controls experience were with the Slingsby T21 ‘Flying Brick’, a dual control glider where the instructor and trainee sat side by side. We were towed into the air but an available glider tug aircraft, although elsewhere, getting in the air could be winch or bungee launching, or today many ATC gliders are powered motor gliders like the Grob Vigilant T1.

Slingsby T-21B – the Flying Brick

open cockpit side-by-side glider

Photo ©Pete Jenkins

Of course, I waited for the day when In would have my first ‘hands-on’ powered flight, and back in those days it was with the De Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk, a great little aircraft that could perform basic aerobatics, much to my delight. Many a weekend the squadron would be taken to an airfield to take it in turns to fly either the ‘flying brick’ or the ‘Chippie’.

DeHavilland DHC T22 Chipmunk – The Chippie
Photo ©Pete Jenkins

As the years have gone by, I never did end up as an RAF Tornado pilot, (yes there was a serious possibility that this would have been my career path when I was 18), instead, I found myself becoming a career professional photographer, starting with local newspapers, magazines and freesheets in 1979, and then Fleet Street in 1983, by which time I had become a full-time professional.

My indulgences with flying became few and far between. With a full-time photographic career, I found myself with little time to indulge in flying lessons, and generally the only time I flew was when paid to do so by a client. I went up in a glider a few times in order to photograph other gliders, or in planes or helicopters top do arial work or plane to plan ’stuff’.

When I did have the time to indulge in flying lessons, I inevitably found myself short of cash. Being a freelance money only appears when one is working!

Pete Jenkins outside Canary Wharf the then home of the
Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph
photo courtesy of ©Frank Coppi

It is only in the last twenty years or so that I have reconciled money with time and been able to indulge in the occasional lesson but reconciled myself to the fact that I actually will never get my pilot’s licence.

Piper PA28 180 Cherokee similar to the type I have taken occasional flying lessons in

Instead, I take the odd ‘busman’s’ holiday and spend a day photographing aircraft, often down at the Shuttleworth collection, based at the Old Warden Aerodrome. Some 50 or so vintage aircraft, mostly airworthy, including five Edwardian types including the oldest British airplane that is still in flying condition, dating back to 1909 only six years after the Wright brothers’ ‘Wright Flyer’.

1934 de Havilland dh88 comet G-ACSS developed specifically to participate in the

22 January 2026

Uncategorized

Pete Jenkins

0 Comments

One of the hangers at Old Warden Aerodrome home of the Shuttleworth Collection. Photo ©Pete Jenkins