When I look back, as I occasionally do, on the pattern of my long life, I see it dominated by three great projects — the design and construction of the airship R101, the development of the jet propulsion gas turbine, and Cranfield University. These are, so to speak, the high hills in a plain of diversified scenery.

Of these great projects, I have included essays on R101 and on Cranfield, but I have confined my reference to the jet propulsion story to my opinion, long ago first expressed, of a great man, Frank Whittle. I have not expressed myself at any length on the controversies which mar the Whittle story and those who are interested — and who is not? — should read Whittle’s own book Jet and Mr Folley’s biography. Of the two men who I believe had the greatest influence on my career, Sir Henry Tizard and Sir Harry Jephcott, I will have something to say later on.

We, his family and friends, are gathered here today in the heart of London to remember and to give thanks for the life and work of one of the truly great men of our time — the Lord Kings Norton of Wotton Underwood, ‘Roxbee’ to the legion of his friends and colleagues.

Through the many years of his active life, there were hardly any avenues of the aeronautical sciences to which he had not made (and enjoyed the making of) inspired contributions.

He was, indeed, “A Happy Warrior”.

If the question was to be asked — “What, among all Lord Kings Norton’s many achievements, were those most to be acclaimed?”, the answer, among such a galaxy, could, perhaps, be four.