Her Majesty gives Spitfire pilot a lift A letter from the Queen cheered up famed Second World War Spitfire fighter pilot Jerry Billing more than she could ever know back in Buckingham Palace. He’s fighting what appears to be a hopeless battle against both government bureaucrats who cut his wartime disability pension and a $30-million wind turbine development threatening his rural airstrip. The much-decorated war veteran is ailing, with his 88th birthday fast approaching on Monday. He’s too proud to ask for social assistance when money is tight and doesn’t want to sell his house and move into a seniors’ residence with his wife Karen. They married in 1957. Most of the comrades who would come to his aid in an instant are dead or in worse shape than he is. His lined face lit up Thursday as he explained how he wrote to Queen Elizabeth as a last resort just three weeks ago. Thinking back to his war service, he said: “You give your life to protect the Queen and I took that as gospel truth.” He was shot down three times over France, and wounded. Both knees have been surgically replaced. He’s essentially deaf in one ear. He seldom walks more than a few feet within the home he built alongside the grass airstrip in Lakeshore purchased with his pension 40 years ago. The letter from the Queen’s senior correspondence officer is brief — a little more than 100 words. “The Queen has asked me to thank you for your letter of 19th March, and to say that Her Majesty has taken careful note of the views you express in it. “Perhaps I might explain, however, that this is not a matter in which The Queen would intervene. As a constitutional Sovereign, Her Majesty acts through her personal representative, the Governor-General, on the advice of her Canadian Ministers and it is to them that your appeal should be directed. “I have, therefore, been instructed to forward your letter to the Governor-General of Canada so that she may be aware of your approach to The Queen and may consider the points you raise.” A lawyer might not take much hope from those words, but Billing treasures the quick reply. Many of the government officials he writes to never respond. He gets letters from friends around the world as a result of his wartime service and career later as a test pilot. France knighted him and made him an honorary citizen. Billing wonders if the Queen remembered how he flew a Spitfire over the throngs who gathered to welcome Her Majesty and Prince Philip on their visit to Windsor on Oct. 1, 1984. The following day, the Queen’s correspondence officer wrote to Billing from the royal yacht H.M. Britannia, docked in Toronto harbour, to say: “The Queen has asked me to write to you to say how much Her Majesty and Prince Philip admired the skill and precision of your fly-past in the Spitfire at Windsor, Ontario yesterday. Your timing was perfect and this made a splendid curtain raiser for The Queen’s visit to Windsor.” Another letter from Buckingham Palace came in April 1992: “The Queen was interested to learn that you are celebrating fifty years of continual flying of Spitfires, and sends you her congratulations on this remarkable anniversary.” Former Windsor surgeon George Bernstein, who did a detailed medical examination of Billing to support his claim for a better pension, once wrote an appeal to Prime Minister Stephen Harper to intervene in the impasse with veterans’ affairs. Billing never got a reply. That was three years ago, he says. With his gimpy knees requiring a wheelchair for any distance, he won’t travel to see any more government doctors for more examinations. He says they won’t come to see him. Two of his flying buddies — Ron Holden and Marie Guthrie — bring their small airplanes out from Windsor Airport and over his airstrip Thursday. They swoop down low for a pass or two over his airstrip, waggle their wings and are off. Billing watches from his window and smiles. The five, 120-metre wind turbines planned by Toronto-based Gengrowth near his strip are supposed to start being erected within a month or so, his wife says. His cause is one of “equal rights.” He wants the same four-kilometer buffer zones as other small, registered airstrips to keep the turbines far enough away to eliminate any safety risks for area pilots. Windsor Airport has a 10-kilometer buffer zone. The company never knew his airstrip was there when the wind turbine locations were chosen. The town approved the development. But Billing isn’t giving up. More letters are on the way. Maybe one will reach somebody who can help, he hopes.
