The Sowreys

[Rogernoble]

The Sowreys – Air Commodore Graham Pitchfork.
 A comment in the September 1955 White Star magazine old boys news had caught my attention “W R Sowrey is a test pilot for Vickers Armstrong. We imagine that he is largely responsible for the new road signs on the London Road near Wisley which have received national fame “sudden aircraft noise””. I looked at the internet but found only confusion as there seemed to be so many Sowreys that I could not piece everything together.On 1 April 2018 I spotted an article in the Sunday Telegraph entitled “The family that shaped the RAF” which gave a brief history of this extraordinary family. Soon after Andrew Harvey spotted Air Commodore Graham Pitchfork book on the Sowreys. The tale starts in the First World War with the three brothers who were in at the start of the RAF. They became aces and were heavily involved in working out how to shoot down the Zeppelins which were beginning to plague the country with their bombing raids.Our heroes went on to become senior figures in the RAF and the next generation became aces in the Second World War. The older generation were directing successful operations in North Africa to see off the Italians. They all seem to be technical wizards and developed many advances in things like night flights.  The tale takes you all round the world and deals with troubles like Mesopotamia outside the main wars. Air Commodore Sir Freddie Sowrey is still alive in his 90s having flown just about anything that took off from an airfield as well as being a notable motor racing driver. It is a history of a truly extraordinary family.Our interest centres on Robin (known at Hillside as Bill) Sowrey who is fondly remembered by Robin Whicker and Nikolai Tolstoy. He is described in the book.By a strange coincidence his time in Hong Kong coincided with mine. I knew many of the people at the Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company, where he worked, from sailing and may well have met him at some stage.Anyway an intriguing story of an extraordinary family and well worth the read.

Roger Noble