“Mr. Hawker did not attempt to make a speech, though encouraged by the crowd to do so. He was also appealed to by autograph hunters, several of whom vainly waved their albums from the densest part of the crowd. Some Australian soldiers, not to be denied, forced their way through the crowd and grasped the hand of their fellow-countryman, congratulating him with characteristic warmth and vigour. When the train, after ten minutes’ stay, was restarted, a perfect forest of hands was thrust towards the carriage, and as his coach slowly passed forward Mr. Hawker grasped such as were within reach. It was a royal reception from a crowd moved to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, and their deafening cheers completely drowned the noise of the escaping steam as the powerful train moved on its southbound journey.”
Harry’s next stop would be at Grantham, where he expected to meet me.
At last the train came in, and there seemed to be an awful scuttle outside. Then Harry literally fell into the little room where I was waiting. He just said the sweetest and most wonderful thing I could ever hear, and added, just as the people started to crush in, “Don’t cry.”
Then we went back to the waiting train. Standing in the doorway of the little room, we were faced by a veritable sea of cameras, which I tried to count but could not.
We got into our carriage in comfort—the last comfort of the day—and with an aeroplane as escort overhead, Harry and Grieve triumphantly proceeded to King’s Cross, where a terrific reception awaited them. As the train drew up at the platform, part of the enormous crowd surged into our compartment. How they knew which one was hard to tell. The civic reception party who were on the platform to give official welcome to the heroes were completely shattered, and I believe it must have been wonderful tactics which allowed the official Mace-bearer to retain the mace in the face of 300 or so Australian soldiers who thought they needed it. Anyway, the two adventurers were just carried out of the train and placed in Harry’s big Sunbeam, which a few hundred Australians, not content with towing, began to carry!
Harry, by then worried as to what would happen to his car, with about forty people up, and carried by hands which caught hold of anything which projected, decided, in consideration of the welfare of the car, to leave it, and he began literally to crawl out over the heads of the people. Eventually he was saved through the offer of a ride in tandem on a police officer’s horse. Later, this officer relinquished the animal for Harry, who arrived at the Royal Aero Club in Clifford Street in triumph and to receive more welcomes. Arrived there, and once inside, Harry and Grieve had to stay. The crowds outside grew bigger and denser instead of the reverse. Mr. Sopwith and others, from the balcony, tried to persuade them to disperse by telling them that further jubilation was not desirable and the aviators wanted rest badly. But these efforts were of no, avail, probably because owing to the tumult below the words passed unheard rather than unheeded.
However, a little strategy, a side door, and about ten mounted police who kept close to the car until it had gathered up enough speed to keep people from jumping on, combined to facilitate an escape, and, having parted from Grieve at the Club, we were speeding off for Kingston.
The employees of the Sopwith firm had organised a special entertainment in the grounds of the Ham works, and Harry had promised to be there. But when he arrived all seemed to be in a state of chaos. A singer stopped singing in the middle of a word, and the whole audience rose as one man and seemed to engulf Harry. It must be a very strange and wonderful experience, even although it last but a few days, to be continually the centre of a demonstrative crowd. Crowds waiting to see you leave your house; more crowds waiting at your destination. It can only be the very few who remain unspoiled by such ovations.
After having thoroughly broken up the proceedings at Ham, for which all the artistes who had not yet appeared were probably thankful, our party proceeded to Kingston in the car of honour, towed at a run for about two miles by the Sopwith people. At Kingston an impromptu supper was given to all and sundry by Mr. and Mrs. Sopwith.