A Welsh tearaway who escaped from jail then stole a plane and flew across to France in a bid for freedom, memorising only the instructions he'd read from The Aeroplane magazine, has died aged 91. Brynley Fussell, a serial escaper, had 77 convictions having ended up in borstal aged just 10 for accidentally setting fire to a haystack.
Originally from Port Talbot Brynley had a tough start in life but thanks to his daring nature, innate technical talent, and a healthy dose of luck he briefly became "the most famous pilot in the world" and was "fêted on six continents for his superb flying skill and his daring".
Members of his family still live in Port Talbot and fondly remember his chaotic life and how he spent most of his adolescence in youth custody. His family, from Cwmafan, were poor. Born in 1931, his father was a coal hewer. When the Second World War broke out both his parents worked in a munitions factory and later separated leaving Brynley and his two brothers and sister to largely look after themselves.
A cheeky cigarette as a 10-year-old saw Brynley land in custody after he accidentally set fire to a haystack and fled the scene on a neighbour's bicycle. He was charged with arson and sent to a remand home in Aberdare and later to an approved school – Bryn-y-Don in Barry. He had a very unhappy time there, saying he was systematically abused and describing it as a "sadistic hellhole".
Talking later in life to aviation journalist Pat Malone he said: "I decided there was nothing for it but to run away. Where to I don’t know but anywhere was better than this. So in the middle of the night I squeezed out of the dormitory window three storeys up and climbed down a drainpipe and got away."
Thus began a career of multiple escapes, each time getting caught and landing back in custody for longer than before. After escaping from Newton-le-Willows approved school on Merseyside and hiding for four days without food he broke into a bakery and stole a tin of biscuits which he found to contain £600 – a massive sum in those days. He checked in to a guesthouse in Birkenhead but they were suspicious and called the police who arrested Brynley and took the biscuit tin.
Other escape attempts included from Morpeth approved school in Northumberland where he stole a car and managed to drive to London without ever having driven before and rowing across the Solent to Southampton after escaping from borstal on the Isle of Wight. Brynley, or Bryn to family and friends, had always had a passion for aviation – perhaps because aeroplanes seemed to offer routes to faraway freedoms. So the youngster soaked up every detail he could garner from aviation magazines about how they worked and how to fly them. One article – in The Aeroplane – would become instrumental in Brynley's next bid for freedom as it ran a section on how to fly an Auster Autocrat. To Brynley's naturally inquisitive mind it seemed to be the simplest to operate and he memorised every word.
So in the dead of night on November 22, 1950, Brynley broke into an office at Sywell aerodrome in Northamptonshire. He saw a single-engine Auster Autocrat with the registration G-AHHP and stole it. He siphoned fuel from other aircraft in the hangar to ensure that the Auster had a full tank and wheeled it out of the hangar in the darkness. It was about 2am. The moon was three-quarters full.
“I was a little apprehensive," Brynley later told Pat during an interview for Pilot magazine in 2017. “There were no lights to see the instruments by. I opened the throttle gingerly and the aircraft started to move and to swing a little so I countered the swing with a bit of rudder.
“Then I opened the throttle completely, moved the stick forward slowly, brought it back as the tail came up, and kept the aircraft level until all the controls felt quite firm. I eased the stick back and I sensed the aircraft leaving the ground.”
The determined teen followed the moon, heading south, before landing in a field at Yardley Hastings, eight miles from Sywell, where he slept until daylight. When he took off again the aircraft left tracks that showed it had narrowly missed a stone drinking trough. He later landed next to a road and asked a lorry driver for directions before eventually reaching the coast at Beachy Head in East Sussex. He dipped to 30ft to avoid radar and headed across the Channel.
Once over France Brynley landed in a field to relieve himself and was offered bread and soup by a farmer and his wife. But Brynley was short of fuel so he carried on his adventure to a village near Orléans where he damaged the Auster’s propeller while he was landing. A kindly van driver picked him up and gave him a bed for the night. While Brynley told him he was heading for Marseille to rejoin the crew of a ship it was a major story back in Britain where the headlines were already rolling. The Daily Mirror ran the headline: “MISSING PLANE IS IN FRANCE: POLICE HUNT YOUNG PILOT.”
Whether the man who befriended Brynley heard the radio reports of a missing pilot or simply doubted the teen's story Brynley woke to gendarmes arriving at the house the next morning. He was arrested and taken to Paris where he was imprisoned for four months.
For a short time he became “the most famous pilot in the world, the toast of newspapers from New York to New Zealand”, wrote Malone, “a man fêted on six continents for his superb flying skill and his daring”. The Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph wrote: "Missing plane: Borstal boy detained." The article added the Auster's owner, a Mr Esmond Kimbell, would fly to France to retrieve his stolen plane.
Meanwhile over in Britain, which was seeking his extradition, Sir Ian Fraser, a Conservative MP who had been blinded during the First World War, raised Brynley's case in parliament and suggested that the prisoner should be freed and enlisted in the RAF. No-one could decide if Brynley was a hero or a villain and even Esmond was so impressed with Brynley’s natural aptitude for flying he offered to give the Welsh teenager more time in the air.
Brynley's story went far and wide and he received a parcel from the author Geoffrey Dorman containing a copy of his book British Test Pilots. A note inside read: “If you will only learn to be truly honest and utterly trustworthy you have it in you to be like one of the men in this book. If you would like me to help you let me know and I will see what I can do.”
“It was the first time in my life,” said Brynley later, “that anyone had offered to help me.” But his hero status was short-lived. When Brynley returned to Britain he was sentenced to a further 21 months in jail. As an inmate of Bedford prison he joined classes in mathematics and geometry and corresponded with Dorman. He was released after 14 months for good behaviour. Dorman kept his word. He took the former prisoner to meet Sir Stanley Hooker, a renowned engineer, at the Bristol Aeroplane Company. Brynley was soon was offered a job in the engine test department and so began his journey of redemption.
But after a year Brynley became unsettled and left to become a trainee skipper on a boat in Port Talbot. Speaking after his death his family recalled the keen sailor and great Dylan Thomas aficionado who called his yacht the Polly Garter. Following his brief spell as a sailor Brynley took a job in the metallurgy department at the University of Swansea, which quickly recognised his skill with machinery. He later ran two laboratories at Imperial College in London.
Brynley returned to Swansea in the 1970s where he helped to establish a laboratory in mass spectrometry, which is used to measure interactions between light and matter. He was only allowed to work there on the condition he took an O-level in English – the only qualification he ever gained. During the 22 years in which he played key roles in the department Swansea became one of the world’s most influential centres of mass spectrometry.
Stephen Kimbell, the son of Esmond and a member of the helicopter club in Sywell, had heard a story of almost-legend status of a youth who’d stolen an aircraft and successfully flown it without the benefit of flying lessons. It was him who started searching out Brynley and who eventually tracked him down in 2015 at Swansea airport.
Stephen said: "When we met him Bryn told us his life story and I think all of us were moved by the very difficult childhood and early life that he had suffered and how he had turned his life around both professionally and personally. He was clearly a very talented engineer and pilot with great natural gifts but he had the strength to overcome his disadvantages and harness his talents in a wonderful way. It is a wonderful story of redemption."
Describing Brynley as a modest, clever, and funny man with great charm Stephen recalled one of his favourite anecdotes: "At our first meeting he asked to sit in my aircraft but said that I should remove the key as it would not be right for him to steal another aircraft from my family."
Brynley Fussell was born on February 9, 1931. He died on May 12, 2022, aged 91. To receive news from across Wales straight to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters here.
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