Kristen's Echat With... Andy Wright of Aircrew Book Review

Andy Wright, book reviewer extraordinaire of Aircrew Book Review, has been reviewing military aviation books since 2009. And not just any aviation books. He focuses on the aviators rather than the squadrons or machines and doesn’t just rehash the back cover blurb. He writes at length about both book and author, drawing on his own extensive knowledge of the aviation world to get to the core of the book and author’s intention. Reviewers are at the heart of any  publicity/marketing campaign and authors constantly worry about how to get them to pick up, read and consider their new offering and, if they do, whether they will pan or praise it. Andy’s time is precious and he does not waste it on criticism; he only reviews books he is passionate about and wants to bring to a wider readership or classics for which he has a great affection.

 

 

 

Andy has built up a loyal following over the last four years but he did not set out to be a reviewer; he had envisaged recording the stories of RAAF veterans of the Second World War. How, I wondered, did he turn from budding aviation historian to respected reviewer? I was very pleased when Andy agreed to confide in me and our readers (and anyone else who stumbles on our blogs and facebook pages via their favourite search engine) in the fifth of my Echat With... series. 

 

But first, I must confess my interest. Andy has reviewed all three of my books. Chris Wisbey of ABC Hobart interviewed me about all three, but Andy is the only person to appraise my collected opus (apologies for the overweening reek of self-importance emanating from that phrase). In addition, we have become good friends since we first met by email shortly after Clive Caldwell Air Ace was published. It was actually a bit of a fan email (or at least I took it as such; I receive so few I don’t mind making big of something slight). He told me he had just purchased my first literary offering and was looking forward to reading it. That sort of thing always makes the heart of a first time (or even third time) author melt.

 

Eight months later, he was in touch again to tell me he had been interviewing some RAAF veterans of the Second World War; he wanted to preserve their stories and was conscious that ‘time is running out for these guys and there are many out there who have not had their experiences recorded so perhaps I need to spread myself out to record more histories while we are still blessed with the men who lived them’. At that stage, the experiences of a Lancaster mid-upper gunner had got under his skin and he initially thought he might write a magazine article. Then it occurred to him that, by talking to the surviving crew members, he would have much more than an article. He asked my advice about putting together the interviews and research into a book; how much back ground to add, what sort of historical context.

 

Andy didn’t really need any advice as he is well qualified to write this crew’s story. He gained his journalism qualifications at Curtin University, he loves reading and he has been a great fan of aviation since childhood. ‘I’ve always been a reader’, says Andy. ‘I used to devour the likes of The Famous Five when I was in primary school.

 

 

 

 

 

My Dad is from London so, in the early ‘80s, I grew up watching films like Sink the Bismarck! and The Dam Busters to name a couple. We started building models together and what boy doesn’t get excited by ships and aircraft and other machines?! I borrowed a book on the Battle of Britain from the school library in 1986—that’s my earliest memory of actually getting stuck into an aviation book’. By that stage, Andy was hooked but his enthusiasm for aircraft really took off a year later when the family moved to the US. ‘We lived near Hill Air Force Base in Utah with its great museum which included a B-17 and B-29—heaven for the budding WWII aviation nut. In the 2.5 years we lived there we travelled a lot and managed to visit places like the Smithsonian and, on the way during a trip home, RAF Hendon in the UK. The model-making also stepped up a few notches as kits in the late ‘80s were really cheap (even to a pre-teen!). I still remember 1/48 scale USAAF heavy bomber kits for US$15! I bought a copy of Flypast magazine at Heathrow airport with the change I had in my pocket in late 1988. I must have read that issue 100 times and my parents later bought me a subscription as a Christmas present so, I guess, that’s really where things started seriously … at the tender age of 12!’

 

Despite the seriousness of his passion, he is not a total aviation tragic. There are limits. He and Jodi were married in 2005 on Santorini, an island in the southern Aegean Sea, about 200 km southeast of Greece’s mainland. He found out several years later that it was the same weekend as the inaugural Merlins Over Malta weekend when a Spitfire and Hurricane returned to the island for the first time since the war, (if he recalls correctly). ‘I don’t think I would have been too popular suggesting we go to that if I had known about it!’ No, perhaps not. But ‘Malta is one of those places that just fascinates me, mainly due to its wartime flying of course. Just frenetic flying. The wedding, of course, was great with close friends and family but I did take a few moments on occasion to look out over the Med and let my mind wander back a little over 60 years.’

 

Interestingly, Andy has no real desire to get into the air himself. ‘I did an intro flight out of Jandakot in Western Australia back in the early ‘90s and have done some straight and level stuff in a Tiger Moth and a Cessna 180 owned by a friend in WA. I’ve often thought about learning to fly but I’m a little freaked out by the bumpiness that can come with flying a light aeroplane. I’m not sure I would be able to maintain the confidence and cool head (and I’m not a nervous flyer) required. Therefore, other than enjoying getting my hands dirty on a variety of old aeroplane projects over the years, I truly am an armchair flyer. That said, I pay a lot of attention when I am flying particularly when I can see the ground and know what height we’re at. Being able to visualise that when I’m reading really helps.’

 

Sadly, you need more than just passion to record stories, the writing skill to do it and the enthusiasm to carry through. You also need time. Andy’s family—wife Jodi, daughter Maggie, Monty and Milly the wonder poodles and the soon to be born Junior—are, says Andy, ‘my main focus and time-consumer! Makes life easy and hard at the same time!’

 

 

 

 

 

But he is ‘passionate about history (aviation in particular), preserving/remembering/teaching that history and getting hands-on with it’ and so, instead of writing his own books, he now reviews those written by others. He set up Aircrew Book Review in 2009 ‘to fill a hole I found as I researched newly ‘discovered’ titles i.e. provide information on what the book is like and whether it’s worth spending some of the limited budget on’.

 

In particular, locating books on RAF and Commonwealth flyers. ‘Other than the occasional book I picked up at markets, fetes and sales I wasn’t a collector of aviation titles until about 1998–9. I discovered Amazon and easily found a lot of books about the aircrew of the USAAF in Europe, the Pacific and the Far East theatre of war but I struggled to find much on the RAF and Commonwealth flyers. That’s a funny thing to say but I can only assume it was my inexperience and maybe the early days of Amazon as there were obviously a lot in print at that time! Anyway, as I learned of more and more books (and bought more and more) I started realising that for many of them there was little to nothing online to prove their existence or help a future reader work out if a book was worth the effort. I started writing reviews on Amazon and it grew from there. ABR exists solely to promote these books—old and new—with the additional aim of it being a useful resource as it features an ever-increasing number of titles’. More than that, ‘reviewing allows me to share my love of reading coupled with the application of my passion for, and knowledge of, WWII aviation and, to a lesser extent, aviation in general.’

 

 

Andy and Steve Bridgewater (now the editor of Jets Monthly) during his trip to the UK in 1999.

 

Despite his journalism training, Andy worked only briefly in that field. ‘When I finished that qualification I was at a stage in my life—newly married—where I needed to be earning more than the assistant editor role offered to me. I spent a bit of time with Elders’ Farm Weekly in Perth but the passion was not enough to keep the financial reality at bay!’ A new career beckoned but Andy has brought much of his training to ABR. ‘For ABR I try to “hook” the reader in the first paragraph (if they’ve come to ABR that can sometimes be easier to achieve as they’re obviously inclined to read something relevant to aircrew) but, most importantly, spelling, grammar and flow are the things I go to great lengths to try to get right. It’s certainly not perfect and I sometimes come back to a piece I’ve written and posted and cringe at glaring errors. From a research point of view, I deal with what I know. I research the book and its author so whatever I write is as accurate as I can get it’. He also makes notes ‘as thoughts hit me and even scribble out paragraphs’. But sometimes, the pen is not handy and, like all of us, ‘I’ve written many a fine passage in my head only to forget it later on’. 

 

 

 

Andy’s reviews are incredibly personal and differ from the run of the mill repeat-the-backcover blurbs that often appear in newspapers and magazines. He carefully reads and considers the book and what the author is trying to say. I wondered if this particular style evolved or if he has always preferred the review-as-contemplative-essay format. Andy revealed that ‘it’s something I wanted to do from the start. I’ve always aimed to be honest and I can’t do that if I haven’t read the book. I appreciate each and every book I read/review. It is a privilege to be allowed to read an author’s hard, and often very personal, work.’

 

One of Andy’s earliest reviews on ABR was that of Philip D. Caine’s Spitfires, Thunderbolts and Warm Beer. An American Fighter Pilot over Europe, which tells of the experiences of ‘Yank in the RAF’, Leroy Gover. 

 

 

http://aircrewbookreview.blogspot.com.au/2009/04/spitfires-thunderbolts-and-warm-beer.html

 

Its concluding paragraph highlights Andy’s personal approach, combining the ‘money’ précis with his own emotional response. ‘Reading this book is like talking to an old friend who has been away for a few years. The author’s additional comments and context are worked into the text seamlessly so all you feel is the world of Leroy Gover. Happily unable to tear away, you are inundated with information and emotions experienced more than 60 years ago. It is a candid, sometimes amusing, always eye-opening, look at how one man coped with the day-to-day pressures of combat operations with two very different air forces’. It’s trade mark Andy.

 

Before Andy wrote his reviews of Clive Caldwell Air Ace and Jack Davenport Beaufighter Leader we had a good long conversation and some of that made it into the pieces. I wondered if Andy did this as matter of course. ‘I do if I can get in the ear (or inbox) of the author. I want to know where the book came from, what kicked it off. I’ve come across a lot of interesting stories and felt that desire to know more so to learn of this and see a tangible result in the form of a book helps me understand things a lot better. It’s harder when review copies arrive from publishers as I’m rarely able to speak with the author so have to concentrate on the book itself not its path to creation. Even then, though, I try to research the author and often find he or she has asked questions on specialist internet forums so I can get some idea of how deep they went.’

 

With an active toddler, full time job and accounting studies, Andy has recently discovered the difficulties of trying to ‘do it all’ and is conscious of the fact that his reviewing pile is building up. He has two ‘current reads’ on the go—‘David Vincent’s The RAAF Hudson Story Book Two which I am chipping away at; such a mammoth work but I insist on reading it cover-to-cover, and Ted The Lad, a popular self-published title about an underage Lancaster wireless operator; not a bad read with an interesting pre-war life included as a stream of chronological anecdotes—and ‘according to my review schedule (!) the next one is Geoff Raebel’s second edition of The RAAF In Russia (self-published this time). Then there’s a good 20 titles after that in the pile’, over and above the nine listed on the website in the ‘next full reviews’ list.

 

 

Just some of  the books on the 'next full reviews' list

 

Andy likes to post something at least once a month but, he confesses, ‘that doesn’t always happen’. He worries that ABR fans might become disappointed if they keep checking in and finding nothing new on offer. He has come up with a number of solutions. ‘Due to my limited time, one of my main problems is the period between receiving a review copy and actually getting down to reading it (not to mention finding the time to write 1500–2000 words about it!). Recently, to bridge the gap and help achieve a greater online presence for the title, I’ve been writing short blurbs where I wax lyrical about the quality of the publication, some observations about the content and provide a basic overview of what the thing is about. These have been getting longer because I can’t help but get enthusiastic about new books’. When he first started out he admitted that ‘I can go on a bit about a book I’ve really enjoyed because, to me, they are such a privilege to read’. And that is at the heart of his reviewing practice. ‘I’ve never been 100% comfortable writing them if I haven’t read the book cover-to-cover and haven’t looked through the author’s eyes. I try to write with feeling so the reader (of the review) knows the book is an experience (for better or worse). You can’t do that in 200 words (well, I can’t!).’ So, even his short appraisals have substance. He also ‘occasionally features guest reviewers which helps keep things ticking along’. (I am pleased to say that Andy considers my opinions worthwhile enough and has recently invited me to guest review, and has asked to republish a couple of my pieces that originally appeared elsewhere.)

 

When Andy first established Aircrew Book Review in April 2009 his first words to his readership were ‘Welcome to a silly idea I had several days ago!’ Far from silly, ABR has been embraced by aviation readers and has now received nearly 25,000 visitors. I asked if Andy had any sort of marketing plan. He surprised me by saying ‘no’. In fact, rather than having a structured approach to developing reach, he admitted that he ‘makes it up as I go along’. However, he has covered some of the basics of website management. He keeps an eye on the stats and keyword searches and featuring brand new books certainly helps with the traffic’. Interestingly, though, ‘it’s one of the oldest books featured—Roald Dahl’s Going Solo—that has generated the most visitors to ABR’. I am not surprised. This is a classic, and one of my personal favourites. I know Andy does not review fiction—categorically refuses to do so—but if he ever reconsiders, Dahl’s Over to You short story collection should be top of his fiction list.

 

 

http://aircrewbookreview.blogspot.com.au/2009/05/going-solo-roald-dahl.html

 

Andy realises he can’t just count on people trawling through the blogosphere to gain new readers, and so he has set up the ABR facebook page. Admittedly, it was ‘more an experiment than anything else but helps spread the word’.  Regardless of how his readers find him, Andy is ‘just happy people are interested enough to visit’. And by the monthly hits, which most recently broke through the 3000 mark, they revisit, and revisit.

 

For many years, Andy’s favourite way to relax was ‘reading a magazine in the coffee shop on a Saturday morning but that doesn’t happen anymore!’ Piled up on his bedside table are ‘numerous magazines—historic aviation, vintage trucks and the occasional naval journal’ which he dips into when he can but he has little free time and reading just for the fun of it is a sacrifice he is happy to make, but all in a good cause as, more often than not, he spends his down time ‘playing with Maggie. Much more of that at the moment’! (I’m sure I’ve told him he can combine the two by taking a leaf out of Tom Selleck’s book—or sports paper—in Three Men and a Baby and read his favourite magazines to Maggie as he bounces her on his knee.)

 

 

 

 

In the days when he did have time to read for pleasure, Andy notched up a few favourites. ‘None are literary classics or anything to make me sound incredibly intelligent or widely-read. As a teenager I read Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt adventures and always remember Cyclops, Dragon and Inca Gold as him at the height of his powers. Good, fun books with a decent dash of history and its effect on the present. I don’t know how many times I read Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising.

 

 

 

From an aviation point of view, Murray Peden’s A Thousand Shall Fall is humbling and Mike Crosley’s They Gave Me a Seafire proved to be a read with wonderful ramifications after I wrote its review’.

 

 

Andy admitted that that review is his favourite to date. http://aircrewbookreview.blogspot.com.au/2010/01/they-gave-me-seafire-mike-crosley-dsc.html ‘I ended up speaking with Mike Crosley’s wife Joan shortly before he passed away. A lovely and strong lady who looked after her husband in his final years’. Andy has written the full story of his contact with Joan Crosley as a reprise to his review. http://aircrewbookreview.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/its-little-things.html Andy feels privileged ‘to have been contacted by family members who are always pleased to see their relative’s book receive some attention’.

 

Another thrill was much closer to home and in the flesh, so to speak. He was at the Temora Aviation Museum when he met former RAAF pilot and RAN commander Nat Gould who has flown Hurricanes, Spitfires Mark VC’s and Mark VIII, Seafires Mark III’s and XV’s, Seafurys and Fireflys, and Lysle Roberts, one time Spitfire pilot and former president of the Spitfire Association. He had just finished reading They Gave Me A Seafire and, as ‘Nat featured in the book it was a great coincidence’.

 

 

Nat Gould and Ron Cundy
(mentioned below) are included in this photo of the  Spitfire Association's 2013 ANZAC Day Reunion lunch, held after the march at Sydney Boulevarde Hotel. Among the 84 members and guests were: WNGCDR Mark Frost, WNGCDR Anthony Stainton, AVM Mark Skidmore AM (Ret’d) (Patron of the Spitfire Association), Allan Spratt, George Clissold, Commander Nat Gould, FLTLT David Roach, PO Matthew Glazier, FLTSG Stephen Yau, Front Row: Beau McFee, Jack Anastas, Joe Barrington,  Sid Handsaker, Paul Dehlsen, Ron Cundy DFC, DFM, Erella Hamilton AM, Commander David “Shorty” Hamilton, Ted Sly DFC, MID.

 

For someone who has read so much, Andy can’t pin down the greatest influence on his reading life. There are simply too many. ‘Obviously my parents with the movies we watched and buying the Flypast subscriptions as a regular Christmas present for close to 10 years. Alex Henshaw also has a lot to answer for. His Sigh For A Merlin (I’ve only read it once and that was more than a decade ago) is a thing of beauty and I can still remember large chunks of it. Thinking about it now, it’s the feeling that I got from that book that I wait for when reading today. While it doesn’t often happen as strongly, I’m happy to say I regularly come close’.

 

Andy has also been influenced by desert Kittyhawk pilot, Ron Cundy. ‘Like so many of the authors I read I’ve never met him but his A Gremlin On My Shoulder (read several years ago now and reviewed at http://aircrewbookreview.blogspot.com.au/2009/04/gremlin-on-my-shoulder-ron-cundy-dfc.html) slaked my thirst for anything North African and introduced me to two men who I had never knowingly heard of but whom I now greatly respect and admire.

 

 

 

In his delightfully titled piece ‘I Blame Ron Cundy’ http://aircrewbookreview.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/i-blame-ron-cundy_30.html Andy tells how he was introduced to the ‘gloriously named Osgood Villiers ‘Pedro’ Hanbury and the legendary Canadian flyer James “Stocky” Edwards. Both men’s stories are available in print with the latter going on to write a couple of campaign titles on the Canadian Hurricane and Kittyhawk men in the Western Desert with historian Michael Lavigne. Pedro’s story was only published in 2010. He did not survive the war but Ron Cundy painted such a vivid and respectful picture of him that I just had to know more so the book’s release, a couple of years after reading Gremlin, was a happy coincidence’.

 

For Andy, ‘it’s that feeling of being on the verge of discovery of remarkable people that keeps me excited and passionate. Recently, I read about Wilbur Wackett surviving his No. 75 Squadron Kittyhawk bale out in New Guinea and spending over a month walking to safety’. My review of Leon Kane-Maguire’s biography of Wilbur Wackett, Lost Without Trace http://aircrewbookreview.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/lost-without-trace-leon-kane-maguire.html, helped Andy ‘put two and two together and now Wilbur’s life and ultimate loss has become a bit of a focus for me. Considering the size of the war and the number of people involved, there’s always links to other stories. It all helps to build a greater understanding and the important thing is you never stop learning or discovering.’

 

Andy might not have met Ron Cundy, nor many others of his favourite pilot-authors, but he has encountered a handful and he counts as his most cherished experiences his meetings with Owen Zupp (author of 50 Tales of Flight and Down to Earth, the subject of Andy’s first review on ABR http://aircrewbookreview.blogspot.com.au/2009/04/down-to-earth-sl-kenneth-mcglashan-afc.html) and Charles Page (author of Wings of Destiny, also reviewed by Andy http://aircrewbookreview.blogspot.com.au/2009/04/wings-of-destiny-charles-page.html, and Vengeance of the Outback).

 

He met Owen in Perth ‘one Saturday afternoon in 2007 for a coffee and chat. We’ve stayed in touch ever since but have never met up again (yet). I regard him as a mate and one of the authors carrying the future of Australian aviation writing on his shoulders (something he is more than capable of)’.

 

 

 

 

‘Did the same with Charles Page last year (steak and beer this time). There’s someone who deserves to have everything he writes published. Fascinating bloke’. Over the years, Andy has developed a number of satisfying relationships with authors he has reviewed. ‘Several of them have become friends and we endeavour to catch up whenever we’re in the same town’. As enjoyable as this is, he freely admits it ‘makes it a challenge to review their work!’

 

 

Although Andy has put his plans for his own book on hold, he has a number of published pieces adorning his personal bibliography. ‘I used to publish an e-magazine about the vintage truck movement in Australia and NZ—Australasian Classic Commercials—and ended up with about 100 subscribers before turning it into a website http://oznzclassiccommercials.blogspot.com.au/. The page layouts took me forever!’ In the print media world, ‘I had all of my features published in The Western Independent when I was studying journalism. I guess they were my first official published pieces other than some photos sent in to magazines. Flightpath published a piece reviewing websites on the Curtiss P-40 series and a few photo essays have appeared in several vintage truck magazines here in Australia (even scored my first cover photo!)’. Andy has also been ‘submitting cut-down reviews for several Australian magazines including Flightpath and Rag & Tube and these have been published. I’m also doing the same for a journal based in the UK but it’s early days yet’.

 

He may have put his own book length project on hold but that hasn’t stopped him becoming involved with other authors’ work. Andy offers editing (structural, technical etc) and proof-reading services to emerging authors. I asked him what he looks out for when providing advice and assistance. ‘The same thing I try to achieve with my writing’, he told me. ‘Flow and spelling etc. I also tend to pick up on the occasional technical issue like mis-identifying aircraft or getting a particular detail about one wrong. Such things also give me an indication as to how “deep” an author has gone. If they don’t care about such things, what else have they glossed over?’ This is an invaluable service and can’t be underestimated. All publishing houses have copyeditors scrutinising manuscripts, but how many have the ability to tell the difference between the different marks of Spitfire? Not many people offer this assistance and it is to Andy’s credit that for him, it is a labour of love; he does not charge a fee.

 

Andy acknowledges that he can’t help everyone so selects his projects carefully as much for their interesting content as the excitement of nurturing something special into print. ‘I’m currently working on a project for a friend overseas with so many threads it’s a challenge to draw it all together. At the moment the focus is on keeping the author focussed as he has a knack for discovering the most obscure and amazing stories in well-trodden areas. I think we’ve discovered a good lead-in to the major story that is a book in itself though so the pressure is off somewhat’.

 

 

 

As well as helping to bring new aviation stories to an enthusiastic readership, Andy wants to ‘work on getting some out of print titles (modern day classics) re-published. Have succeeded with one so far, Pathfinder Cranswick.’ Written by Michael Cumming, this is the biography of Squadron Leader Alec Panton Cranswick DSO DFC, who after a tour with 214 Squadron in 1940, service as a ferry pilot in West Africa and a significant number of ops on Wellingtons, and a short stint with 419 Squadron, found himself in 1943 as a Pathfinder with 35 Squadron. He was killed in early July 1944. Originally published in 1962, with a condensed second edition appearing in 1963, it was revised and updated for a paperback edition in 2006 and remained in print until 2009 but somehow Andy had never come across Cranswick (harking back to his problem of not being readily able to find good RAF stories). Anyway, according to Andy, he first discovered Alex Cranswick ‘when reading Chris Ward’s 6 Group Bomber Command. He made reference to a man who was on his third tour and would go on to commence his fourth. For me, this was unprecedented so I had to know more. A bit of googling and asking some friends turned up a book, written by Michael Cumming. The first two editions were only ever available for ridiculous prices and the self-published paperback from the early 2000s never turned up for sale.’ Through talking about Cranswick on the net—Andy is an active frequenter of a number of forums—he managed to get in touch with Michael Cumming. Cumming told him that, ‘almost fifty years after the first edition, he was still keen to keep Cranswick’s remarkable story in front of a new generation (hence the self-published edition). However, he couldn’t afford to keep paying for printing so he’d developed an ebook and started selling it on Amazon’. Andy enthusiastically reviewed the digital edition in early 2011 http://aircrewbookreview.blogspot.com.au/2011/01/pathfinder-cranswick-michael-cumming.html It was his first ebook review.

 

Andy maintained contact with Michael Cumming and asked if he’d be interested in another print edition if Andy could introduce him to the right publisher. ‘He was, of course’, says Andy, ‘and, as it turned out, I was (and still am) in regular correspondence with Steve Darlow and his new venture, Fighting High. I had seen FH’s first few titles and the quality of the hardbacks, cover to cover, was (is) industry-leading. I had no hesitation in putting them in touch with each other and, I’m proud to say, the end result was the beautiful 50th anniversary edition of the classic Pathfinder Cranswick.’ In fact, Andy who is not biased in any way, ‘will say categorically that Pathfinder Cranswick is the most stunning hardback I have had the pleasure to hold in my hands. High quality for a top piece of writing.’

 

 

 

 

Fighting High Publishing is obviously a house that will go far if publications like this and Tich Palliser’s They Gave me a Hurricane (one of my favourites from 2012) are any indication. Check them out at http://www.fightinghigh.com

Andy may not be in a position to write his own aviation history yet, but I am confident this will happen in time. In the interim, Aircrew Book Review will continue to reveal good reads and Andy will help authors and smaller publishers get in touch with each other as well as promote their work. We all have to support the self publisher and smaller houses as they are the ones dedicated to ensuring less commercial stories reach the bookshelves of the dedicated aviation reader who wants something more solid than a lot of the pulped popular accounts we are seeing in the chain stores. Andy ‘loves stepping back, doing a bit of networking in my head, and seeing what paths things can take. I’ve had several authors and publishers ask for advice and, frankly, I love helping but, really, I’m an amateur. I know what I like and I know quality when I see it. If I can put an author in touch with a graphic artist to help with maps and layout, for example (like I did for Graeme Gibson’s forthcoming epic Path Of Duty) then I’m only too happy to help. That’s what I tell everyone—ABR is a vehicle for them. If it can help in any way, I will make it available. Anything to get these stories, this history, out there.’

 

If you would like to connect to Andy, sign up for the Aircrew Book Review blog at http://aircrewbookreview.blogspot.com.au/ or ‘like’ the ABR facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/AircrewBookReview. Or perhaps send him a friend request at https://www.facebook.com/andy.wright.372 and receive lots of aviation-related photos and posts. If you are in interested Andy’s assessment of my collected works (I know, that term does sound a little OTT) you can check them out at:

 http://aircrewbookreview.blogspot.com.au/2009/07/clive-caldwell-air-ace-kristen.html

 

 http://aircrewbookreview.blogspot.com.au/2009/09/jack-davenport-beaufighter-leader.html

http://aircrewbookreview.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/australian-eagles-kristen-alexander.html

 

I am delighted Andy Wright agreed to be the subject of my fifth Echat With... It is great to have such insight into the mind of a dedicated aviation book reviewer. Next month I take a departure from the aviation world, but not from history, and Echat With... Sulari Gentill, author of the Rowland Sinclair mystery series and the Hero trilogy, an exciting young adult series blending ancient myth, monsters, sorcerers, sirens, magic and warring gods.

Stay tuned for the next in my Echat With... series: Andy Wright of Aicrew Book Review

After a corker week working on the opus, where young Ken Holland scored his first combat victories and the 2700 words I put down brought the total count to 137,500, I have had to lay it aside. I must confess that I usually resent it when I ...have to work on something else but not this time. There is something on my to do list that is just as - if not more - exciting: the next in my Echat With... series. Stay tuned on 1 September for Kristen's Echat with... book review guru Andy Wright of Aircrew Book Review http://aircrewbookreview.blogspot.com.au/. Andy will share his passion for reading and all things aviation, and talk about the art of book reviewing.

 

 

Kristen's Echat With... series. A writer interviewing writers

Have you checked out any of my Echat with... interviews?

The first interview on 1 May was with up and coming ebook and self published author Justin Sheedy http://kristenalexanderauthor.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/kristens-echat-with-justin-sheedy_30.html

The second, on 1 June, was with aviation author Charles Page http://kristenalexanderauthor.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/kristens-echat-with-charles-page.html

The most recent, one 1 July, was with pilot, aviation author and journalist Owen Zupp http://kristenalexanderauthor.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/kristens-echat-with-owen-zupp.html

Forthcoming interviews (which appear at the beginning of each month) are with historian Michael Molkentin, bloggist and book reviewer Andy Wright, Crime and YA author Sulari Gentill and pilot and author Mac Tucker.

Kristen's Echat With... Owen Zupp

Kristen’s Echat With... Owen Zupp

(No. 3 in the Echat With... series)

 

 

I first ‘met’ Owen by email back in 2006 through my day job as a military bookseller. At the time, he was ‘just a customer’. Two years later, after embarking on my Battle of Britain research, his name again crossed my radar but in a totally different context. My friend Doug Hurst, who wrote (among other things) The Forgotten Few. 77 RAAF Squadron in Korea, asked if I had read Owen’s biography of Squadron Leader Kenneth Butterworth McGlashan AFC. He recommended Down to Earth. A fighter pilot’s experiences of surviving Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, Dieppe and D-Day to me for the ‘terrific insights into the RAF and England in those times ... That aside, I thought it a very good read’. And it is. (Don’t just take my word for it. Have a look at Andy Wright’s review at Aircrew Book Review. http://aircrewbookreview.blogspot.com.au/2009/04/down-to-earth-sl-kenneth-mcglashan-afc.html ) Doug pointed out that, typical of his generation, Kenneth McGlashan was a modest man with no claims to special recognition among his peers. But, according to Doug, Owen decided to tell his story ‘because he thought Ken did more than most and, having read it, I agree with him.’ Not a bad starting point for your first book, and one certainly that has helped me get a handle on the RAF during the Battle of Britain.

 

Soon after Doug’s recommendation, I contacted Owen and congratulated him on his book and asked if he could recommend a UK researcher as I needed to obtain records from British institutions. Since then, I have enjoyed sporadic contact but over the last year or so, Owen and I have slipped into a semi-regular econversation relating to our separate research projects. I have gained much from this and it is good to be able to share achievements and progress with a fellow writer. I now count Owen as a writing friend, but I have to confess that I had no idea of the depth of his experience as a journalist, pilot and aviation author. Not, that is, until I asked him to be the third in my Echat With... series.
 

So, what’s Owen’s background? He holds a Masters Degree in Aviation Management, he is a commercial pilot with nearly 17,000 hours of flight experience and has flown all around Australia and the world, and he has 20 years in airline operations. In addition to Down to Earth, he has written articles which have appeared in Australian and international journals and recently launched his first ebook, 50 Tales of Flight: From Biplanes to Boeings, a collection of stories from his aviation blog, which became an Amazon instant bestseller. He is currently working on another ebook about his solo round-Australia flight and an account of his father’s Second World War and Korean War experiences.

Incredibly, given his great literary output, Owen did not set out to be a writer. He started his working life as a paramedic, studying and learning to fly in between his shifts on the streets of Sydney. As you can imagine, he saw some terrible sights and grew up quickly, but his stint with the NSW Ambulance Service gave him a life-long sense of perspective and appreciation of life’s gifts which are ever apparent in his blog posts and underpin his 50 Tales of Flight. So, what made him take the leap from paramedic to aviation author?  

 

Owen had been working for Ansett Australia as a pilot but when it collapsed, so too did his job. That was the turning point that saw him embark on post-graduate studies and take up his pen to share his experience of flight. Fortunately, he was not lost to commercial aviation. It wasn’t long before Qantas snapped him up and, when he is not holed up in his study writing, or packing school lunches, or having coffee at his beloved International Cricket Hall of Fame, Owen is plying our airways in a Boeing 737. But where did his love of aviation spring from?

 

 

It seems in Owen’s case, Nurture came out winner in the Nurture V Nature debate. ‘Born to a fighter pilot father and air force radar operator mother’, Owen tells me, ‘the odds of me being a plumber were slim. I lived and breathed flight from an early age’ and he was ‘sitting in aeroplanes and peering into cockpits with cupped hands for as long as I can remember’. After watching for so long, I wondered about his first flight. ‘It was with my father in a Cessna 150 and I couldn’t reach the pedals on the floor. I would’ve been about five and my strongest recollection is during the take-off, looking down and watching the runway falling away from the wheels. It’s a very vivid memory.’ Fast forward eleven years to his first solo in a Cessna 152 at Camden, NSW. ‘Strangely, I had absolutely no nerves about going solo; I’d experience stronger butterflies before going out to bat in a cricket match. It was a beautiful still morning and I just wanted to scream out to the world that I was actually flying!’

 

 

Not the Cessna, but a Tiger Moth 

 

After experiencing such unadulterated joy in a small aircraft, why then, I asked, did Owen leap from a private licence to flying the big jets of the airlines? Again, it was Nurture, the influence of his father, who ‘would whistle as he went off to fly aeroplanes at 2 a.m. in the pouring rain. I thought there MUST be something special to this flying thing’. He never shook this thought and, as an adult, ‘four years as a paramedic paid for flying lessons which ultimately led me into commercial aviation’. He initially flew outback charter and ferried aircraft overseas. ‘I taught folks to fly and even held the approvals to issue them with licences. Eventually I joined the airlines’. He made the switch because they ‘always seemed to offer the greatest deal of security and stability for a family life. The collapse of Ansett proved that not to be the case.’

A stable family life is important for Owen (as for everyone) and he has been lucky enough to experience aviation and love combined. He is ‘happily married to a girl who flies Boeing 767s’. Kirrily ‘learned to fly at the school where I was the Chief Flying Instructor, although she gave the grumpy boss a wide berth. It was when she joined the staff as a flight instructor that we came to know each other’. They now have ‘four wonderful children’. 

Despite a fulfilled aviation and family life, Owen has one secret hope. ‘I still hold out that the phone will ring and I’ll be off to England to play in the Ashes series this northern summer’. It is a good thing Owen hasn’t laid down his pen while he waits for that call and, in the interim his current career as a pilot influences his writing more than his hoped-for one as a cricketer. He admits that ‘I’m very, very lucky. From the cockpit, we have the best corner office view that is forever changing. I am fortunate that I’m able to share that view and my thoughts with people through writing’. 

With a busy flying career, family and lots of writing projects on the go including blog, book reviews, articles, the next ebook, promotion of the first ebook and his father’s story, I wondered how he managed to be so productive. Owen confessed that ‘it’s a struggle that is mostly offset by getting up at 4 a.m. The best time to write for me is in those early hours before the kids begin their daily routine’. Needless to say, down time is rare in the Zupp household but when he does have a few moments to himself, his favourite way to relax is ‘having dinner, or even just a coffee, with my wonderful wife’.
 

Just like any other writer worth his salt, Owen does not spend all his time off drinking coffee and dining out. He reads. Currently on his bedside table is Phillip Bradley’s acclaimed Hell’s Battlefield. The Australians in New Guinea in World War II. When he finishes that, he will be back in the air with Charles Page’s brilliant biography of Charles Learmonth, Wings of Destiny (a signed copy, what’s more). 

I am sure WoD will become a firm favourite but I could not help asking about his all-time favourite. Sadly, Owen can’t remember the name and has unsuccessfully searched for it for years. ‘It was in my school library and was published around 1950. The paper cover had long gone and it told the tale, with black and white photographs, of a young lad taking his first flying lessons and going solo in an old J-3 Piper Cub. I borrowed it every week for about four years.’ Hopefully this strikes a chord with someone and, if so, please let Owen know the title!

From books to films. How, I asked, would Owen spend a gift voucher for the world’s biggest DVD shop? Ewan McGregor’s Long Way Round, The Untouchables, The Right Stuff, the Hunters in the Sky series and One Six Right: The Romance of Flying, directed by Brian Terwilliger.

I must confess I had to look that one up and, according to the good folks of Wikipedia, One Six Right looks at the unsung hero of aviation—the local airport—through the life, history and struggle of an airport icon: Southern California’s Van Nuys Airport. There are lots of aerial sequences and stories by passionate pilots, air traffic controllers, historians and flight enthusiasts such as Sydney Pollack, Lorenzo Lamas, Paul Moyer, Hal Fishman, and Desiree Horton. One Six Right tells how Amelia Earhart broke a world speed record over Van Nuys’ runways, and, for film buffs, reveals that scenes from Casablanca were filmed on the grounds and Marilyn Monroe was discovered while working in its hangars.

Once the DVD player is turned off, Owen retreats to his special writing place to tell his own aviation tales. ‘I love my study! It was actually twice the size until the arrival of our twins called for more space. The smaller room now has a better writing atmosphere! It has a number of bookshelves and cabinets. The leather-inlaid desk was one of the first pieces of furniture we purchased when we built the house.’

Owen has adorned his study with favourite cricket pieces and photos of aeroplanes, and ‘there are photos all over the walls of personally significant people.’ One of those significant people is his father Phil, who served as a commando in New Guinea and flew with 77 Squadron in Korea. There is a photo of Phil’s aircraft with a shattered canopy in Doug Hurst’s The Forgotten Few and the Australian War Memorial’s Gloster Meteor is the very aircraft in which Phil flew his first combat mission. As well as being a key influence on Owen’s aviation life, Phil Zupp was the greatest influence on his son’s reading life. ‘Forced by the economic times of his day to leave school at a young age, he became a prolific reader with a phenomenal general knowledge. I can’t remember going to bed without him reading to me or relating some wonderful story from his life’. It is an example that Owen has taken to heart as he shares his experiences, stories and books with his children, and with his readers.

With a background solidly based on reading and storytelling, it was a natural progression to writing his own tales. ‘I think I enjoyed writing from childhood’, and his first published piece was a poem in the Sunday Telegraph’s ‘Charlie Chuckles’ section when he was about seven. (BTW, I too am an alumnus of the Charlie Chuckles Club! I wonder how many other Australian writers have been encouraged by Charlie and his editors?) Since then, Owen has barely stopped writing but ‘a career in a very technical realm tended to immerse my life in manuals rather than creative works’. But them with the collapse of Ansett, Owen had the time and a new impetus to tap into his creative side. ‘I sat down to write, purely and simply and the words just poured out. I often think they’d been bottled up for a few decades just waiting to be released’. And how they were released!

Owen has learned much about his literary craft in his time and perhaps the most important advice he has ever received has been, ‘write, write and just keep writing. Get to the end and then go back and start to edit the work, otherwise you’ll never get beyond the first chapter’. And if he could pass on one piece of advice to someone starting out, it would be, ‘just do it. Shelve self-doubt and just start writing’. The consequence of Owen just doing it has been over 300 articles, one of which led to his first book. Kenneth McGlashan read one of those articles and mentioned it to a mutual friend. When Kenneth and Owen realised they lived near each other, they decided to meet ‘and the book was born that day’.

 

 

Kenneth Butterworth McGlashan

 

My second reaction to this (after ‘what a wonderful story!’) was ‘how hard it would be to write about someone still living’. How does Owen do it? I know I would be forever imagining someone looking over my shoulder, and worrying if they would be offended by my conclusions, or if they would be sensitive to a particular line of questions. Owen overcame any potential problems easily. Kenneth placed no restrictions on his writing and gave him free rein to tell the story as Owen uncovered it. ‘Part of Kenneth’s magic’, recalled Owen, ‘was his forthright honesty, blended with a cheeky sense of humour’. Holding your first book in your hands, smelling that special newly printed smell and tracing your name on the title page with your finger, are some of the most exciting experiences of a writer’s life but for Owen, the most fulfilling aspect of writing Down to Earth was ‘establishing a close friendship with Kenneth and his wife, Doreen’.

 

Owen’s next challenge was to write about his father. That, of course, offers its own set of challenges: how to be objective about someone you love, someone who has been such an important part of your life, someone who has influenced you so profoundly that you followed in his footsteps and flight path. I speculated that trying to tell (what I call) Phil’s Story honestly, with the proverbial warts and all, must be difficult. ‘You’re right on the money. For these reasons this has been the most difficult work for me to write to date. Finding the balance of maintaining arm’s length accuracy, whilst still conveying the insight only a son can offer has been a challenge. At times I have walked away from the manuscript for a period before reading it again with fresh eyes. I can honestly say that thankfully I believe that I have found that balance and the story is still an incredible tale’.

Phil Zupp

From what Owen has told me (in confidence, and I am not blurting) Phil’s Story is indeed an incredible tale that has developed considerably over the last six years. ‘The main evolution of that story’, says Owen, ‘is the continuing emergence of new people, places and anecdotes from my father’s life. Each one makes the story richer in its own way, even if it is only a short humorous reference. The passage of time has also allowed me the chance to find official documentation to support a number of recollections’.

With so many other writing projects on the boil, I gained the sense that Phil’s Story is almost taking a back seat. I know I get antsy if I can’t focus on my main writing task so I asked Owen if he felt torn between finishing his father’s story and compiling his blog, writing his articles and publishing his ebooks. ‘It has been frustrating in a sense, as my father’s story is my major work in progress’, he admitted, but ‘I realise by virtue of the amazing popularity of 50 Tales of Flight, that these [other] stories need to be shared as well’. And it is all part of a plan. All going well, ‘Solo Flight. Australia will be released in August, 50 Tales of Flight will find its way from eBook to print, and my father’s manuscript [will] soon becomes a book that does justice to his amazing life. Stay tuned...’. I certainly will.

On 4 December 2011, Owen wrote that ‘writing can be a solitary, one-way street of communication, punching words out into the world beyond and rarely hearing a voice echo back with comment. Yet that somehow makes the exercise a cleansing journey through one’s own thoughts, offering clarity to concepts that may otherwise annoyingly rumble around inside the head’. That was part of the second post on the blog and website he began four days earlier when he committed ‘to entering the world of blogging which was a fantastic tool of communication on the around Australia flight and I will even endeavour to try my hand at the so-called “social media”’. Since then, Owen has effectively used facebook and blog to connect with readers. The blog’s genesis may have been ‘a desire to share a mixture of published pieces and random musings on aviation with a broader audience’, but ‘the natural progression was to grow those “tales” into a published work and the ebook—50 Tales of Flight—was the most logical, affordable step in the first instance’.

Regular contact with his readership is time consuming, but Owen believes it is worth it. Owen told me that he, like any other author, ‘often wonders if anyone is reading the words that you write. These new mediums let the author know first-hand that people ARE reading your work. Furthermore, the feedback can allow the writer to see their work from a different perspective; sometimes you can stand too close to the mirror’. Owen values the opinions of his readers and consulted them when he was deciding on the all important cover art for his new ebook. ‘Releasing the two covers of Solo Flight. Australia for the greater community’s opinions was a very worthwhile exercise’. 

It is interesting that Owen refers to the ‘community’, because Solo Flight. Australia springs from Owen’s community mindedness. Back in 2010, the centenary of the year in which powered flight first took place in Australia, Owen took part in an adventure dubbed ‘There and Back’ to help raise funds for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. During that solo flight, Owen ‘maintained a detailed diary, took hundreds of photographs and hours of footage’. He always intended pulling this together into a book but that project had to line up behind all his others. But when 50 Tales of Flight ‘received such an amazing response, I knew another ebook had to be forthcoming’ sooner rather than later. ‘Consequently, Solo Flight. Australia was born and, like 50 Tales of Flight, it may well evolve into print’.

 

 

 

Just as he embraced social media to promote his work, Owen has taken advantage of the many varied faces of publishing. Grub Street put out Down to Earth in 2007 and, while it is currently out of print, it may well be reprinted when Kenneth McGlashan’s restored Hawker Hurricane takes to the skies. (See http://www.owenzupp.com/_blog/Owen_Zupp/tag/Dunkirk/) Owen hopes that Phil’s Story will be published by an Australian house but he decided to self publish 50 Tales of Flight as an ebook. He believes that print and ebooks ‘each has their own realm and audience and as an author each form needs to be approached differently. I have no real preference as each style fulfils a different need at different times. I initially decided to publish an ebook purely because of convenience and cost. The success of 50 Tales of Flight as an ebook then provided a wonderful indicator and stepping stone to print should I venture down that path’. With this sensible outlook and valuable experience, Owen decided that Solo Flight Australia should first see life as an ebook as well.

Owen’s success as an ebook author has been hard fought. It doesn’t matter if the book is good (and it is) if no one knows about it. Right from the start, Owen has been a dedicated ebook marketer. He has promoted via facebook, called for reviews of 50 Tales of Flight to be placed on Amazon by all who read it and then shared those reviews via social media. (See mine, for example, at http://www.amazon.com/review/R15U0KJQH4QGHK.) He has had giveaways to reach new readers and kept his followers up to date with his Amazon rankings. I wondered if Owen found this ardent marketing a distraction or necessary evil. ‘I don’t find it to be either. I learnt with Down to Earth when it was first released that the author’s job is to market the book. Publishers have an ever-changing stable of books to distribute, so the author needs to share their passion for their book to the greater audience. Whether it is an ebook or print, marketing is simply part of an author’s role in the modern world.’ Owen has accepted that role and has benefited from it.

 

Stepping out of the modern world and into Kingsford Smith’s Southern Cross

 

Owen has had many thrills in his writing career and it is hard to pin down a ‘greatest’. If pushed, he would opt for a ‘three-way toss-up. Signing copies of Down to Earth at the Duxford Air Show in the UK alongside Battle of Britain veterans; having a copy of my first published article faxed to my hotel room in the United States the day it hit the news-stands; [and more] recently, 50 Tales of Flight gaining bestseller status in the aviation genre on Amazon on its first day of release. I have been very fortunate along the way’. Fortunate perhaps, but Owen has worked hard for his well deserved success. 

 If you haven’t read Owen’s books, it’s time you did! Copies of Down to Earth can be sourced via www.abebooks.com.au or you can purchase the ebook at http://www.amazon.com/Down-Earth-Experiences-Surviving-ebook/dp/B007ZDNEI0/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1372202642&sr=1-3&keywords=owen+zupp. Amazon also sells 50 Tales of Flight at http://www.amazon.com/50-Tales-Flight-Biplanes-ebook/dp/B00BKEDNMC

If you would like to connect to Owen, visit his website at http://www.owenzupp.com or sign up for his blog http://www.owenzupp.com/_blog/Owen_Zupp. You can find him on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Owen-Zupp-Author/254292941294710?fref=ts. You can also view images from his solo charity flight around Australia in support of the Royal Flying Doctor Service at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2MPD2p8gNs

 

I am delighted Owen Zupp agreed to be the subject of my third Echat With... 

Next month I Echat With... historian, teacher and battlefield guide, Michael Molkentin. Michael’s articles have appeared in a number of journals and magazines including The Journal of the Australian War Memorial, Wartime, Flightpath and Teaching History. He is the author of the acclaimed Fire in the Sky: the Australian Flying Corps in the First World War and Flying the Southern Cross: Aviators Charles Ulm and Charles Kingsford Smith.