Men of Air [Film]
Glover’s film Men of Air is a collaboration with the musician and designer Andy West.
This film features the strange encounter between a farmer and ghostly presences of airmen on a secret WWII aerodrome in Northamptonshire. The film is based on recollections of his story by people living there. The star of the film is a local farm worker Roy Leaning.
In the spring of 1968, I was ploughing in an area of Harrington
Airfield and as I was just finishing up for the day I dropped the
plough and suddenly had the feeling of being watched. I turned
and looked back and to the right I saw a group of ten or twelve individuals, standing about 150 to 200 feet away, all dressed in full
flying gear, one wearing a peaked cap,
one with a torn flight jacket, several with flying boots unzipped.
They exuded a sense of happiness rather than sadness.
I got off
the tractor to better observe, but the flyers had disappeared.
Roy Leaning, extract from the book ‘Airfield Focus’ by John Smith
Is the ghost story true? Who can tell? What might appear in the mind’s eye
as the truth can, with the passage of time, get changed, passed around and distorted. What we imagine becomes part of local lore.