Athelstan Rendall (pilot)

[2] His first job was with the Herts and Essex Aero Club, where he stayed for two years, working as a ground engineer.

After that, he joined the new de Havilland Express route between Khartoum in the Sudan and air fields in West Africa.

[3] In the first year of the Second World War, working out of Lagos, Nigeria, Rendall flew General Charles de Gaulle, as part of a campaign by the Allies to control the French African colonies.

He was by now flying a Curtiss Commando for BOAC's worldwide service on flights to Gibraltar and Lisbon, and to the besieged Malta.

[8] When he retired from British Airways, as the company had become in 1974, Rendall's log book recorded 15,500 hours of flying in fourteen different aircraft types.

So that he could drive them all on motoring holidays, Rendall had an extra row of seats added to his car, a Lea-Francis.

He was also a keen yachtsman, managing a 60-foot motor yacht for a friend who kept it in the Mediterranean, and going on to have a boat of his own built for sailing.

[1] Rendall's eldest son also became a BOAC pilot, and one of his granddaughters joined the Royal Air Force, flying a VC10 with No.