"Plane"

A couple of months ago, the vulcan bomber took it's last flight at an airshow in Weston-super-Mare. Some of my family were in attendance, including my little nephew. Since that day, my nephew has been obsessed with planes. My parent's house is situated under a flight path for planes coming into Bristol airport. On sunny days, outside in the garden, you can occasionally hear the distant rumble of an aeroplane flying overhead. Every time my nephew hears this sound, he stops what he is doing and searches the sky, upon finding the plane in his vision his little finger points in the direction and he says "plane". Every time. Once out of sight, he mutters "all gone" before continuing with his play time. My nephew is not the first person in the family to have a fascination with planes. We inherited slides from my Grandad, my Mum and I scoured through them hoping to discover some gems - childhood photographs of my Dad and my Uncle, instead we found slide after slide of different aeroplanes in flight. In each box of slides there might be one of a family member.

Another family member with a fondness for planes is my cousin. He recently received his pilot's license. On visiting the family recently, the opportunity was too good to miss. We took my nephew down to his local airfield.

As my cousin signed out a plane and my brother filled in the necessary forms, I held my nephew who proceeded to point out every image of an aeroplane on the walls of the office and all the aeroplanes outside.

"Plane"... "Plane" ... "Plane"

He sat inside and immediately went for the steering.

After all the necessary checks and safety measures, my cousin then took my nephew and brother for a short flight.

Ever since that day he has asked to go back to the plane and babbled incoherently with "plane" and "up" mingled in to the conversation. It is one of the highlights of his short little life and he has been trying to tell everyone about it.