Antonio – Knight of the Sky

My name is Antonio, however, I am an Englishman. My mother was Italian and she met my father, Anthony Cameron, when she was accompanying his aunt on her way to Dover, England. This city had had ambitions to become a seaside resort and my father worked there as a manager of a hotel in which the two women stayed. He immediately fell under the spell of a lively young Italian woman, and so in 1897, in blue villa overlooking the English Channel, I, Antonio, was born. The fact that I spent my childhood in Dover affected my whole life...

In 1903, when Wright brothers undertook their first airline attempts in the USA, I was six years old. When in 1906 a Frenchman Santos Dumont , raised his airplane for a few seconds in the air, I now remember how I sat on my father's lap and stared in fascination at the picture of the strange machine resembling large winged insects. Three years later, in July 1909, we assembled in a crowd near the Dover Castle and waited for the silhouette of Louis Blériot’s airplane appearing on the horizon. Louis Blériot was the first man to fly over the English Channel. It was amazing! The plane landed heavily, lost its gear as well as a propeller, but before all that ...  it was flying! The massive machine rose into the air, passed the cold water in the Channel and nicely transported its pilot from Calais, France, all the way to us. At that very moment I knew what I would be when I grow up. A pilot.

My desire was so strong that even my parents eventually reconciled it. First, my father promised me his support, I had to convince my mother much longer. The idea that her only son entrusts his life to the strange machine in the sky terrified her. But eventually she put up with the fate and I could go to Bristol, where, in 1915, as an eighteen-year-old, I joined the flying school. One year later, already in the ranks of the British Royal Air Force, I attended the first School of Aeronautics and then an advanced pilot course at the Central Flying School. In 1916 I was nineteen years old and the world was in the middle of an armed conflict when I was ready to defend my country.

My whole life was connected to aviation. I passed my passion to my three sons and they passed it further to their offspring. And that is how our family history is associated with the history of conquering the sky. Generation after generation of the Cameron family, men fly in the clouds and women patiently wait for them to return home. The fate of all of us is inscribed into the endless blue sky. I am happy to share my experience and all the stories concerning every product with you.