Adrian Bleese

Adrian Bleese is a former RAF and police aircrewman, private pilot and enthusiastic collector of journeys that seemed like a good idea at the time.

Born and raised in the northwest of England, he joined the Royal Air Force and flew on search-and-rescue and submarine-hunting missions. On leaving the RAF, he was disappointed to discover that civilian life offered remarkably little demand for submarine hunting and was therefore forced to find a real job.

After a spell in advertising, he joined Suffolk Constabulary and spent twelve years flying on police helicopters, attending almost 3,000 police tasks despite being neither a police officer nor a pilot. He was one of only a handful of civilian air observers working anywhere in the world.

Flying, writing and travelling around Britain by unnecessarily complicated routes have been lifelong passions. He has written extensively about aviation, including a monthly magazine column and features on flight safety and aviation history, and now writes regularly about travel, history, aviation and England’s more interesting corners.

He is the author of Above the Law, Bunking Off, On The Road Again and Lost England?, in which he retraces H. V. Morton’s 1926 journey through England a century later.

Adrian lives in Suffolk with his wife, a spaniel and considerably more books than any of them strictly need. When not writing, he can often be found visiting obscure museums, forgotten monuments, old airfields and peculiar buildings in the hope that one of them has a story attached.