WE'VE come a long way since those few paragraphs five weeks ago based on a 1950s minute book of the Swaledale Football League. A long story very short, it led to memories of Squadron Leader George Bennions DFC, a Spitfire pilot who lost an eye in the Battle of Britain, but who in the 1950s was still a combative centre half for Colburn and Walkerville.

Now we hear from David Wilson, grandson of the fearless flyer in the aircraft with the tail code EB-J. Not only is EB-J still flying – different plane, of course – but just this month, David has commissioned a profile of the Spitfire from aviation artist Benjamin Brown.

David, who lives in Catterick Village, where Bennions Way still acknowledges his grandfather’s courage, recalls that in June 2004 – just months after “Ben” Bennions’s death, aged 90 – the Defence Secretary announced that 41(F) squadron, with which his grandfather flew, was to be disbanded. Its Jaguar fleet was being retired; the family, says David, were utterly dismayed.

Two years later, however, a decision was made to reform the squadron, with Tornado and Harrier aircraft. In 2010 it merged with another squadron to become 41(F) Test and Evaluation Squadron now based with Typhoons at RAF Coningsby. EB-J flies with them.

“So far as I know, it was the first to get airborne,” says David.

The jet is currently on loan to 1(F) Squadron, taking part in a Nato exercise called Red Flag – interesting name that – based at Nellis, in Nevada. “It’s a bit like Top Gun. All the best pilots from Nato gather each year for it,” says David.

Thanks to modern technology, David and his family can still follow it around the world – “The official RAF Facebook page shows Typhoon EB-J taxiing out for a night sortie at Nellis with the bright lights of Las Vegas in the background. It’s a pretty impressive sight.”

* As an RAF pilot might confirm, it’s also a pretty small world. The Swaledale League minute book was loaned by Eddie Roberts who – we now learn – taught with Ben Bennions at Risedale School in Catterick Garrison.

More coincidental yet, Eddie’s son Bryn would himself take to the skies whilst still a pupil at Richmond School. Bryn had a driving licence, but not a pilot’s. The school friend who became a regular passenger en route to Teesside Airport had a pilot’s licence, but still couldn’t drive.

The Jack Spratt arrangement worked perfectly. The young flyer was, of course, David Wilson.

David had first taken to the skies as an eight-year-old, flying from RAF Catterick in the Tiger Moth owned jointly by his grandfather and Ben’s pal Bill Meynell. “I remember being terrified, keeping my hands straight down the side of the cockpit unless I touched anything,” he recalls.

At 16 he was a qualified pilot, though not allowed to fly solo until his 17th birthday, July 14 1989. The plan was to pass his driving test on the morning of his birthday and to fly alone in the afternoon. He failed the first bit. The story made the following morning’s Echo. “It’s rather nice,” says David, “that 25 years later it’s going to be in there again.”

Talk of the Swaledale Football League also led to memories of the Swaledale Cricket League. We may not have heard the last of either.

Alf Hutchinson in Darlington remembers as a 13-year-old – 60 years ago – playing cricket for Forcett Park, long defunct, the field a pasture in the grounds of Forcett Hall with a ten-yard wide strip for the wicket.

“The outfield – i.e about five yards from the wicket – was deep in grass, thistles and evidence of the cattle whose peaceful cud chewing we interrupted on match days.”

There were similar grounds, he remembers, at Ravensworth and Hutton Magna. “Nobody seemed to mind very much. They were very happy days.”