The Shepherd

The Shepherd relates the story of a De Havilland Vampire pilot, going home on Christmas Eve 1957, whose aircraft suffers a complete electrical failure over the North Sea en route from Celle in northern Germany to RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk. Lost in fog and low on fuel, he is shepherded to a disused RAF dispersal field by the pilot of a De Havilland Mosquito fighter/bomber of World War II vintage, who has apparently been sent up to guide him in.

However, when he lands at the airfield - the fictional RAF Minton - he learns that his saviour was Johnny Kavanagh, a wartime RAF pilot who had been stationed at Minton and who had guided crippled bombers home; he disappeared over the North Sea in his Mosquito on his last mission, on Christmas Eve fourteen years before.

The story was 'read' each year around Christmas on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Radio programme "As It Happens" by the late Alan Maitland.

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