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The Guardian
30-03-2025
- General
- The Guardian
John Hemingway obituary
His father Basil had thought that his only son might become a doctor, but then his son disliked the sight of blood. So when Gp Cpt John ('Paddy') Hemingway died at the age of 105, it was instead as the last surviving pilot – and the last surviving Dubliner – to have flown in the Battle of Britain, 85 years ago. He was shot down twice during the battle, and twice subsequently, but then he was the 'lucky Irishman'. And for months in 1940 Hemingway's life – although he would have derided the idea – was one of those 3,000-odd in step with the fate of the world. In the winter of 1939-40 Plt Off Hemingway, fresh out of Royal Air Force flying school, had been posted to Debden, east of London, with No 85 Squadron. The squadron's Gloster Gladiator biplanes had been replaced by sleek Hawker Hurricanes. The Hurricane was still less glamorous and slower than the Supermarine Spitfire, but it was the workhorse of the RAF's fighter war in the early stage of the conflict, and could take on its Luftwaffe equivalent, the Messerschmitt Bf 109. By the spring of 1940, 85 Squadron was based in France, and Friday 10 May marked the end of the 'phoney war' over western Europe, as the Nazis launched their massive attack on France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Hemingway was in the thick of it, downing his first enemy aircraft, a Heinkel He 111 bomber. On the Saturday he helped bring down a Dornier Do 17 bomber, but then had to make a forced landing after the intervention of a German Fieseler Storch spotter plane and intense ground fire. The pilot, with two leg injuries, then joined a group of refugees limping along the long road to Brussels, before rejoining the remains of his squadron. By 17 May, as the Blitzkrieg accelerated, Hemingway had returned to England. He initially flew Hurricanes with No 253 Squadron, out to Dunkirk as the British and allied evacuation took place into early June. By mid-June he was back with No 85 Squadron, which was now commanded by the charismatic Peter Townsend, the future – and romantically doomed – partner of Princess Margaret. Between July and October 1940, Hemingway was one of that group of pilots – predominantly British but crucially from around the world – who comprised 'the Few'. On 18 August 1940 he was shot down at sea near Clacton and only the timely arrival hours later of a small craft from the Clacton lightship saved his life. Just over a week later, this time over the Kent countryside, he came down again, this time from the bullets of a Messerschmitt. With the end of the Battle of Britain that October, the focus shifted to the night-time blitz for which the Hurricane was totally unsuited. So early in 1941 the squadron was transferred on to the American Douglas Havoc II, a night fighter variant of the Boston bomber. When Hemingway's instruments failed on 13 May 1941, he was forced to bail out at low altitude, sustaining various injuries. By the time of the invasion of Normandy in June 1944, Hemingway was working as an air traffic controller. But as the end of the war approached, early in 1945, he became commander of No 43 Squadron, flying Spitfire IXs. The squadron was by then based in Italy and operated primarily on ground attack. Weeks before the war ended he was shot down again, rescued by partisans, and taken, by a little girl, back to the allied lines. In May 1945, amid the chaos of postwar Europe, Hemingway and his squadron were posted to Austria, where he remained until the end of the year. Hemingway was born in Dublin, just a few months after the outbreak of the Irish war of independence. He was the oldest child and the only son of Basil Hemingway, a Protestant builder, and his wife, Elizabeth. He had three sisters: Georgina, Thelma and Sylvia. He was educated at St Patrick's Cathedral choir school – where, it transpired, he was not cut out to be a chorister – and St Andrew's college, Dublin. There his sporting prowess shone through on the rugby pitch and the running track. While still a teenager he arrived in London at the end of 1938 for a visit to the RAF and received a four-year short-service commission. As 1939 dawned Hemingway was beginning three months of training in Brough, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Then came the war. Hemingway did not leave the RAF with the outbreak of peace in 1945, and his first assignment was to Greece. He was a squadron leader by 1948 and by 1953 he was commanding No 32 Squadron, flying de Havilland Vampires – Britain's second jet fighter – in Egypt. In 1954 he became a wing commander. He was, for a time, station commander at RAF Leconfield in the East Riding of Yorkshire, close to where he had started all those years before. He was a lover of Beethoven. In 1941, following his exploits with the Douglas Havoc he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and mentioned in dispatches. Hemingway married Helen (known as Bridget) Prowse in 1948. She had arrived in Britain from South Africa to enlist in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force at the beginning of the war. She predeceased him in 1998. They had a daughter and two sons. John 'Paddy' Allman Hemingway, fighter pilot, born 17 July 1919; died 17 March 2025
The National
31-01-2025
- The National
Emirati professor becomes a Dubai taxi driver to explore what drives us
When Ammar Shams was in his fifties, he and his wife drove from Dubai to London. It took them two weeks, and they went from the UAE to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Belgium and then England. That is one example of what the Emirati professor calls the 'exploratory side' of his life, the other two being the professional aspect – working in oil and gas followed by HSBC – and the academic aspect – teaching family law twice a week at the British University in Dubai after retiring from the corporate world, 'in order to keep the grey cells active and alive'. This exploratory side is the part he says he enjoys the most, and what led him pursue a master's in international comparative law at the age of 40, a PhD in the intersectionality between gender and Sharia at the age of 50 – and, most recently, a stint as a Dubai taxi driver a few months before his 60th birthday. 'It's safe to say that I enjoy driving,' Shams says with a smile. 'I de-stress by getting in the car and just driving, ideally in the desert or an open space where there aren't any buildings or other cars that get in the way.' Of course, the life of a taxi driver entails quite the opposite. But it enabled Shams to meet people on their own terms. 'I have always been curious about people. I want to find out more about the human condition, the human mind. But I realised, unfortunately, every time anybody interacts with another person, there's always effectively a filter. 'When I meet people, the first thing they see, especially if I am wearing my kandura, is 'old Arab man', and therefore their conversation or interaction will be on the basis of 'old Arab man'. I wanted to talk to people without that filter,' he explains. Shams adds of his decision to train as a cab driver: 'I also wanted to know more about the city I have called home for 60 years. So I know my Dubai, I know Barsha, Jumeirah, Mall of the Emirates, DIFC. That's my world, right? A world where all my friends are effectively me. They've studied what I studied, lived where I've lived, experienced what I've experienced. It's one-dimensional. 'I wanted to see Dubai through the eyes of others. I wanted to meet people who would be themselves when talking to me. I wanted to have fun, but more than anything else, I wanted to learn. I had no idea what to expect.' The process comprised a two-week course alongside 34 other drivers-in-training, followed by an English language test and then two months on the road – or standing in the taxi ranks to pick up passengers from malls and hotels – during Shams' daily 4pm to 4am shifts. 'Those two weeks alone were worth the entire exercise,' Shams says of the training. 'It blew my mind. Of the other 34, two were lawyers, at least six had engineering degrees, others had graduated from business courses. They were phenomenally skilled, qualified people whose aspiration was to be a taxi driver in Dubai to earn a salary of Dh4,000-odd that they could send home to their kids.' Over the course of two months, taxi driver Shams learnt much about the human mind and spirit. He also revealed one colleague refused to believe he is an Emirati citizen, even scrutinising his Emirates ID and driver's licence photographs before commanding him to 'return the wallet someone obviously dropped in your taxi back to the RTA office'. Of the dozens of passengers he picked up and interacted with over the weeks, Shams says he did not have a single bad experience. While a handful did not seem interested in engaging in conversation, many others let their guard down almost instantly. 'I tend to get along with people and I like talking to them, and most were happy to unload. I got to know more about some of them in a 20-minute ride than I know about my closest friends,' says Shams. 'The anonymity of a conversation with someone you are almost guaranteed to never cross paths with again is liberating.' Shams also made a conscious decision not to take on a different persona. 'I didn't want to create a caricature of anybody. I would have found that offensive. So I promised myself I'd always be me and answer questions about myself honestly, but only if anybody asked.' The end game, he says, was to address concepts of bias and stereotypes. Drawing parallels between a peer he met at university and the drivers he trained with, Shams says: 'At my student digs in London, I got talking to a guy who, after asking if I was Arab, went on to tell me he was Israeli. Halfway through our conversation he said: 'Sorry, I need to stop you for a moment. I told you I'm from Israel and you didn't flinch or react the way many Arabs would when they hear the word Israelis.' 'And I told him: 'I'm going to find out about your politics later. If you're a decent human being, I'm not going to put the burden of your birth on you; it is not yours. As it turns out, he was the most pro-Palestinian person I knew on campus.' Likewise, says Shams of the lawyers, engineers and 'incredible human beings' doubling as taxi drivers in Dubai: 'It was probably the single most humbling experience of my life. The human spirit and the amount of common decency I saw was phenomenal. 'It proved to me that stereotypes are man-made, and rarely based on anything other than experiential issues, but that can be a false perspective. The blinkers we put on ourselves often make us see only what we believe we have to or want to see. I like to make people think twice about what they think, and this was part of that.' As for what is next on his exploratory journey, Shams says with a chuckle: 'In a perfect world, and if I could get away with it, I want to drive an Uber in London to compare a similar experience in two different worlds.' Ammar Shams will discuss his experience being a Dubai taxi driver and the insights he gained by connecting with diverse lives on February 2 at Dubai Festival City, as part of Emirates Airline Literature Festival
