Down Memory Lane: High-flying achievements of a real Highland pioneer
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Ted Fresson, willing to fly in any conditions, would play his part in the eventual development of airport runways and lights. But when he became the Highland flight pioneer he even had to fly from the unlikely surroundings of Culloden Moor.
‘Inverness’ was the name inscribed by the cockpit of the new silver and green twin-engined Monospar aircraft, with ‘Highland Airways’ on the side as Fresson made the first flight from the new Longman Aerodrome on April 15, 1933, spending 10 days giving ‘joyride’ flights to 288 passengers at five shillings apiece.
The historic inaugural Inverness-Orkney flight was on May 8. Fresson travelled from the Queensgate Hotel to the Longman, where a large crowd had gathered. Copies of ‘The Scotsman’ newspaper, which the service was contracted to carry, were placed in a pannier below the plane.
Related: Part One: Down Memory Lane: Pioneering airman’s vision brought flights to Highlands
With three passengers – Douglas Gabriel (Anglo American Oil), D Smith (White Horse Whisky) and The Scotsman distribution manager, named Chisholm – Fresson took off, reaching Wick in 50 minutes for a 15-minute stop and arriving in Orkney one hour and 15 minutes after leaving Inverness. The revenue from that first return flight was 18 shillings!
Ironically, Longman Aerodrome was not officially opened until June 17, by the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland. Among the trick flying exploits Fresson piloted a Spartan aircraft from which a Mr Tatum performed a parachute jump, landing in a cabbage patch at the edge of the runway!
As the Orkney service continued, Fresson recalled that when Inverness was fogbound he would drive to Culloden Moor. “I had a landing field there alongside the famous battlefield and if it was clear, I would take off and climb through the fog which was seldom more than 300 feet high”, he said. The return journey would touch down at Culloden Moor and a waiting car took passengers to Inverness.
Ted started flying lessons, his first Inverness pupil being an Isobel Brown who impressed him. In July he flew his first ambulance service mission, taking a North Ronaldsay postman to Inverness for surgery.
In August, he recorded performing ‘aerobatics over the Girl Guides Camp at Loch Ness’. In October he took salesman Peter Angus on a £3 return flight to do business in Brora – and when Angus suggested carrying on to Shetland, Fresson landed in a field at Bressay,
The aerial adventurer became adept at landing his Gypsy Moth at Longman Aerodrome at night without any flares to guide him.
In May, 1934, Highland Airways expanded, launching a scheduled service with a seven-seater Dragon aircraft from Seaton Aerodrome, Aberdeen, to Inverness and on to Shetland.
The same month, on May 29, the company introduced the UK’s first internal airmail service with a contract for the Inverness-Orkney route. Sir Frederick Williamson, Postmaster General, impressed by Fresson’s near-100 per cent reliability record with the passenger service, came north for the first flight, which carried 2000 letters.
This mail route was soon extended to Wick and Lerwick. The trailblazing Highland Airways, however, was unprofitable and in June, 1935, merged with United Airways Ltd. The Highland Airways name was retained and Fresson stayed as managing director.
Ted flew charters to London, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stornoway and in 1937 became the first pilot to land on Fair Isle. But change was coming and in 1938 Scottish Airways swallowed up Highland Airways but was in turn gulped down by the nationalised British European Airways in 1948, and Fresson quit in disillusion.
At a dinner in his honour at the Caledonian Hotel, Inverness, novelist Eric Linklater described his achievement for the Highlands as comparable with the roadbuilding of General Wade. Ted Fresson died in the Royal Northern Infirmary in September 1963. He is buried in Tomnahurich Cemetery where, as his friend, Inverness ironmonger Gilbert Ross, said: “He could see the Stornoway plane coming back down the valley out of the setting sun each afternoon.”
n Sponsored by Ness Castle Lodges.
