IT was the summer of 1952. The air was crisp and clear, with not a cloud in sight - perfect flying weather.

Indeed, a group of ATC cadets were learning how to fly in a two-seater Magister training plane, at Blackpool and Fylde Aero Club, at Squires Gate.

Two of them were from 1104 Squadron, based in Nelson.

One was Corporal John Barrington Laycock, then 18, of Bank Street, Brierfield, who had been in the Air Training Corps for four years. He was an apprentice engineer and his father was Flight Lieutenant H Laycock, CO of the Nelson Squadron.

The other was Corporal Tom Blezard, 17, who lived in Fountain Street, Nelson.

A member of the ATC, he worked as a shift inspector at Bank Hall colliery, in Burnley.

Neither were strangers to flying, for 12 months earlier the pair had set off on what should have been a 14-day trip to Singapore, with the RAF.

The flight, however, had taken a month, for they were stranded at Baghdad when their aircraft was commandeered to take troops to the Suez Canal zone. Good friends, they had also flown all over the British Isles, and had more than 100 hours as passengers.

The two had been awarded Flying Scholarships by the RAF after gruelling interviews, and their course at Blackpool lasted three months. By the time they finished, they had completed 30 hours flying, 22 of them solo and qualified for a Civil A licence.

The RAF picked up the £90 flying bill and put the lads up in one of the largest hotels at the resort - making them a little unsure which was the best bit, the flying or the hotel!

Their training was overseen by Squadron Leader C Parkinson, of Burnley, of the RAF Reserve, who said the object of the scholarship was to attract as many boys as possible to the air, encouraging the right types to make a career of it. So did it work? It certainly did for young Tom, for he went to on to complete more than 38 years in the RAF, serving all over the world, including Northern Ireland, Gibraltar, Scotland, Singapore, Germany, and Cyprus.

In 1953 he met his wife-to-be Renee, of Burnley, on the Colne to Blackpool train, known among teenagers of the time as the passion wagon'.

They married three years later at St Andrew's Church, in Colne Road, Burnley, with John as best man.

Tom went on to become a master aircrew and was among the team on Christmas Island when the atom bomb was tested in 1957-58.