Orkney Image Library

My grandfather, Alexander McLennan worked for Captain Fresson and flew with him on a number of occasions to the Orkney & Shetland Islands. According to my mother, my grandfather carried out repairs on aircraft on the islands.

Do you now which man in the picture is Captain Fresson ?

I would say that capt. Fresson is almost certainly the gentleman standing right of centre in the photo, wearing the beret, plus-four trousers, smoking the pipe, and his left hand on the propeller.
p.b.

Peter is correct. That is Ted Fresson in classic pose with plus-fours, pipe, and hand on the prop.

Cyril Pugh flew with Capt Fresson and repaired the various scrapes they had. He came to the gliding club at Nympsfield later and looked after our Tiger Moth .I remember he would say "I will soon Duft it up "

The gentleman on the extreme left is my father Herbert Rendall and the third man is John G Shearer. I believe they were taking the plane to Shearer's coalshed for overnight storage.

See picture #2612...

Edwin is correct about Shearer's coalshed - it was used to store the aircraft overnight and it was wheeled, its wings folded, from Virkie Pool beside which it had landed. The date was 9 February 1932. A local boatman provided the wheeled trolley to support the tail skid. It is good to have Messrs Rendall and Shearer identified. The lady on the far right is almost certainly Heloise Pauer - she owned the aircraft and travelled as Fresson's passenger.

The detail provided by picture #2612 of the aircraft at Shearer's shed shows that the lady is indeed Heloise Pauer.

Isn't beside the Pool of Virkie where he landed in Shetland (ie where Sumburgh Airport is now)?

Paul, what you suggest sounds logical - the Pool of Virkie is indeed beside Sumburgh airfield. I suspect that Fresson had a memory lapse in his biography - perhaps meaning the Bay of Kirkwall, or the Peerie Sea. He favoured Hatston, which is nearby, as a landing site in his initial surveys, but was unable to secure access.

The man standing between my grand father and Herbert Rendall could possibly be the same man that appears leaning on the prop in picture #2612 . If that is the case his name I think is Peter Williamsom who worked for us as a coalman and I believe his grandson is Keith Williamson the paramedic

Does anyone have any knowledge of Polish employees in Capt Fresson's enterprises in Scotland? I'mm researching a family of Polish origin who lived in Thurso in the 1920s 1930s. Very grateful for any information.

Tricia - do you have any names?

I think the name was Niklewski, or Nikewiscz. Polish spellings and English versions of Polish spelling are in the head-banging zone of research. I had a comment from a family member who thought his father Franz Josef or Francis Joseph (known as Joe) might have grown up in Thurso, but now I suspect Joe may have been in the Polish Forces stationed in or near Thurso during the war. But Joe apparently remembered Thurso with pleasure, so may have conveyed the impression he grew up there. Joe would have been 18 when war was declared. Later, after the war, Joe married a Maria Bujtas of Polish Hungarian origin, in Edinburgh. But the research is proving very frustrating.

Hi Tricia, I have gone through some sources relating to both Highland Airways and Aberdeen Airways (which served Thurso) but have not found these names - sorry.