Winkle

Winkle: The Extraordinary Life of Britain’s Greatest Pilot by Paul Beaver £25.00 There is no exaggeration in the title of this book. Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown did lead an ‘extraordinary’ life and there is much evidence to support the assertion that he was the greatest Briton among the select few chosen to become test pilots. ‘Winkle’ may have been short in stature, hence his nickname, but he made up for this with his natural skill, technical expertise and sometimes breathtaking bravery. The author was a personal friend. Brown selected him as his biographer and gave him free access to his personal archive including his precious logbooks provided Paul Beaver did not publish until after the naval pilot’s death in 2016. The writer obeyed his wishes and should be commended for the result. Winkle, despite the author’s affection for his subject, is no hagiography but instead a balanced account of a genius who was at the same time a complicated and contradictory individual. Abandoned as a baby, Eric Brown was brought up by two loving Scottish parents. Despite an apparent lack of wealth, Eric was able to travel in the 1930s more than once to Germany, which he loved, and it was there that he developed a passion for flying. When war interrupted his university education, he joined the Air Branch of the RNVR. His first taste of conflict came aboard HMS Audacity. He flew Martlets, encountered the formidable German bomber the Condor and was on board when the innovative escort carrier was torpedoed and sunk in December 1941. Brown’s talents were soon recognised and he spent much of the rest of the war testing various aircraft and equipment including, for example, the Seafire and the Mosquito which he landed on HMS Indefatigable in March 1944 – becoming the first to accomplish the feat in a twin-engined aircraft. Secondment to the Royal Aircraft Establishment, the development of the jet engine and the breaking of the sound barrier were further highlights of Winkle’s post-war career as he rose through the ranks in the Navy and gained an international reputation particularly in his beloved Germany and in the United States. And yet, Winkle Brown was, in many respects, his own worst enemy. Paul Beaver quotes successive reports by superior officers who, while recognising and applauding his undoubted talents in all aspects of flying and technical know-how, marked him down on leadership qualities which in turn affected his progress on the promotion ladder. One report acutely noted that he was better with ‘things than with people’. He could be prickly and arrogant, for example refusing to award the highest grades to junior flyers simply because they were not test pilots – like him. Inevitably this impacted on morale and left him unpopular with many squadrons he led. Most curiously, Winkle was not always truthful about his illustrious career and was given to distortion, fantasy, even exaggeration. Paul Beaver explains this as being a psychological defect caused by an innate sense of inferiority stemming from a lack of affection in the crucial first weeks after birth. It would be tempting to place too much emphasis on the negative aspects of this man’s character, in the manner of many modern biographies, but the author, quite rightly, chooses to place his remarkable achievements ahead of his shortcomings. The story of Winkle is compelling and Paul Beaver’s easy, polished style makes this beautifully produced book highly readable.

Compelling, fascinating and frequently jaw-dropping. A brilliant and revelatory biography - James Holland

Winkle Brown's life story makes James Bond seem like a bit of a slacker