Thank you for the memories

What do you buy for the person who has everything? A special day out flying a Spitfire, sharpening their gardening knowledge or quaffing wine among the vines, says the COUNTRY LIFE team, as they try out some of the best gift experiences around Co-ordinated by Victoria Marston

- Victoria Marston

Göring, Göring, gone

THE sound of a Spitfire is ingrained in the British psyche. The unapologetically purring rhythmic beat of the Rolls-Royce Merlin –the finest piston engine to soar skywards–and the throaty, cackling exhaust send shivers down the spine of all who witness this magnificence of mechanical engineering. The sorceress of the skies, the Spitfire is the embodiment of British spirit. The only Allied fighter to remain in full production throughout the Second World War, she is a symbol of dogged determination and national defiance against aggression. Unlike the bulldog, a symbol of stoicism that, over time, has distorted into a sorry shadow of its former self, the Spitfire remains frozen in modern memory: irresistibly elegant, lithe and dangerous. The old warbird still beckons.

Based on the Goodwood estate in West Sussex–but operating out of seven other locations across the UK–Spitfires.com, formerly known as Boultbee Flight Academy, is the only accredited Spitfire training school and the first company in the world approved to give passenger flights in Spits. I arrive on a glorious autumnal morning, a little nervous and praying that my proficiency (or lack thereof) behind the wheel of a car doesn't translate to ability in the air.

I'm kitted out in a flight suit, life jacket and a helmet that Top Gun dreams are made of. In the crew room, I greet John Nixon, my pilot for the day. A softly spoken Yorkshireman, he briefs me with the quiet confidence that only some 21,000 hours in the air brings. All of the pilots based here have a wealth of experience across the military and civilian sectors and I'm instantly put at ease. I express an interest in aerobatics. 'Women do tend to have the stomach for it,' he says with a smile.