I was delighted to see that the new series of the excellent Coast on BBC2 included a visit to the Isle of Wight. As I spent many a holiday on the island, I made sure we caught at least that part of the programme. I hoped it might cover the chalk cliffs near Freshwater Bay and Tennisons monument.
I was taken aback to see that they focused quite heavily on the Black Knight rocket programme that my grandfather, Paul Leyton was Chief Rocket engineer for, for a few years in the 1950’s. It was an excellent piece, showing how Britain led the US for a brief period, and the culmination of the rocket programme was the launch of a satellite, that is still in orbit, transmitting a weak signal. Marvellous.
A couple of people e-mailed to say they saw the piece, and it was a shame my grandfather hadn’t featured in some way, but there were excellent interviews with a few of the folk who worked on the rocket that really did a great job. But my delight in the piece turned to sheer joy when I heard from my father that some of the original footage of the rocket programme was filmed by Grandpa. He’d recorded it at various points, and had previously submitted it to the BBC for something, together with a voice over. My father stumbled on the programme to some surprise (seeing ‘home’ footage you recognise on prime-time BBC2!), and passed on the message that it was Grandpa’s film. I’m not sure if he got the credit at the end though, but there you go.
Anyway, the programme is repeated again on Wednesday evening, and you can see it again at the Coast website. Well worth a watch.
Vertical Empire, by C.N. Hill (who is listed as a contributor to the programme) is well worth a read, as well as Vickers Guided Weapons by John Forbat for the development of various guided weapons, which my grandfather was also involved in prior to Black Knight.
Update: The BBC contacted me and are now linking straight to this page. For visitors from the BBC interested in knowing more about Black Knight, take a look at my previous post summarising my grandfather, Paul Leyton’s, obituaries, which features lots of detail about the Black Knight programme. Click here.
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