Before I begin to generalise about the RAF, let me make a generalisation about mankind and us islanders. All men are escapists by nature. What distinguishes islanders from all other men is that they are the progeny of active escapism. In the legends of antiquity these “Islands of the West” in which we live were the “Isles of the Blest”. Remote continentals longed to escape hither. That is something we tend to forget—not without reason nowadays!—although the process still goes on, in darker colours now. Aviation has become the most general and the most active form of escapism. It is essentially transcendental !