An absorbing tale of one man’s obsession to build a full-size replica Spitfire in his garden juxtaposed against real stories of building Spitfires and the men who flew them
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Author David Price | Price £12.50 (hardback from Amazon) | Released Out now
Reviewer Andy Saunders
Garden ornaments and decorative statuary are a very British obsession, but when David Price decided he wanted something to grace his back garden he went one stage further than most people. Not for him the traditional garden gnome or a concrete representation of Goddess Diana; instead, he opted for a full-size representation of a Supermarine Spitfire.
How he came to build his full-scale Spitfire model is explained in detail in this rather charming and slightly whimsical tale charting the tribulations and disasters of his epic quest. Here, written in the first person, is the astonishing story of building the mother of all Spitfire models.
Cleverly, Price interweaves his own journey with real-life stories of the design and building of the Spitfire alongside accounts about the men who flew the aircraft in action.
This is a device which carries the story along nicely, the whole being written and presented in an enjoyable, engaging style. Exactly what drove Price to embark on this most challenging and creative of projects seems to be something that perplexes even the author himself, who admits to being unsure as to how to adequately answer that question.
Nevertheless, one is drawn into his quixotic and challenging adventure with his profound assessment that perhaps encapsulates what it might be that draws so many to the magic of this aircraft. “The Spitfire is as much an emotion as it is a Spitfire,” he says. Throughout the book, the author is clearly caught up in that emotion.
The book charts how this delightfully eccentric Englishman set about his unusual project using materials comprising mostly of wood and fibreglass in a tent on his back lawn and on the kitchen table. Determined and dogged in his endeavours, those efforts strangely mirror the work by RJ Mitchell and his team to bring the first Supermarine Spitfire to reality.
Price’s Spitfire was finished as a Mk IX. Faithfully painted in the correct markings and colour scheme, the result made it hard to distinguish from the ‘real thing’ – even from a few paces away. Nevertheless, a degree of fragility exists with a wood and fibreglass Spitfire sitting in the open air, and when Storm Dudley struck in 2022 it ripped off one wing and collapsed the undercarriage.
Although repairable, the damage highlighted that its long-term survival might be questionable, and with his goal of the creative process of building a Spitfire complete, Price sensibly passed the Spitfire to an aviation museum. An unusual book in style and content, it is very highly recommended.
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