ELMER THE MONK (Oliver), the first authenticated aeronaut in the World. Elmer, afterwards anglicised into Oliver, was a Monk of the Abbey. He conceived the ideas of man made flight, and sometime between the dates of 1000 and 1010 made himself a "glider" and dived off the West Tower of the Abbey and covered more than a furlong in active flight but "agitated by the violence of the wind and the swirling of the air as well as awareness of his rashness, he fell and broke his legs and was lame ever after."

He attributed his lack of success to the fact that he had "not put a tail on the back part." He wished to try again but the Abbot of the day refused to allow it. He lived to a good old age and turned his talents to astronomy.

By strange coincidence he crashed in front of the writers' house, a modern one, but on an historic site. I derive considerable amusement by asking visiting American friends to date the first "air crash" and they are always a thousand years out in time, thinking in terms of Wilbur Wright and "Kitty Hawk".