“My first big dream, from age 11, was to be a pilot in the Royal Air Force. ‘No one from this school has ever become a pilot!’, said the careers teacher at my school. This made me determined to be the first. After spending five years in the Air Training Corps, preparing myself for a life in the Air Force, I went to university and joined the University of London Air Squadron. We flew Bulldogs (Will Sanford OW, who is currently in the University of Southampton Air Squadron, told me the Bulldog is now a museum piece), and it turned out I wasn’t very good at it.

I had the fear. The recurring thought that I would end up in a flat spin and catastrophic destruction would ensue was something I just couldn’t get rid of. I was though, fortunate enough to end up on fast jets for a while, the Hawks of 100 Squadron, which was the most thrilling and exhilarating time of my life thus far, other than during my first year at Westminster when I wept with relief after the opening night of Anything Goes went relatively well. Eventually, I was ‘chopped’. My Commanding Officer, Wing Commander Dixon, said, after a very bumpy landing into RAF Woodvale, ‘It’s not going well, is it?’ I was sacked. First big dream over. Then came Geography teaching and I ended up in Sri Lanka at Colombo International School. On a weekend trip to Nuwara Eliya in the Hill Country I was struck with Dengue Fever and whilst in a fevered fugue I had a vision of being an actor. I returned to London and enrolled into Drama School and after a few years on the stage, went into directing and Drama teaching. Ultimately, it took a while for me to find out that my first big dream was not the dream I thought it was and I was indeed not the person I thought I was.

“If I have any advice, it would be to take your time, find out where your potential, passion and heart truly lie. And if your first big dream doesn’t work out, choose a second…and then perhaps even a third.”

AvSoc is one of Westminster’s most recently formed pupil-led societies and has proven instantly popular in the community, holding regular lunchtime talks with internal and external speakers, running their own magazine, and even building their own model airport in the roof space of College.

Following Mr Whyld’s talk, Hugo (Fifth Form, PP) said: “The talk was one of the events I have participated in which fully presented someone’s life engagingly, and I left it feeling it had surpassed my highest expectations. Mr Whyld reignited my love for aircraft, captured the audience’s ears, and gave some life lessons along the way.”

Eitan (Lower Shell, CC) said: “I found Mr Whyld’s talk about his career with the RAF very interesting, engaging, and moving. I especially liked the theme of dreams not being realised, which is, in my opinion, underappreciated in our society.”