Today in the UK it is National Poetry Day and the subject is heroes and heroines, so I thought I would take the opportunity to post one of my favourite poems, written to honour the pilots who flew in the Battle of Britain.

Fighter Pilot

He was no Galahad, no knight sans peur et sans reproche. Sans peur? Fear was the second enemy to beat. He was a common, unconsidered man, who, for a moment of eternity, held the whole future of mankind in his two sweating hands. And did not let it go. Remember him, not as he is portrayed, but as the man he was. To him you owe the most of what you have and love today.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Christopher Foxley-Norris