The shape of the book was a worry. “I’m having a dreadful time,” he wrote early in 1919, “all by myself, struggling to get a shape for the book. However, I had ten days or so useless with a vile cold. And I dare say I shall cheer up soon.” The shape began to come, and as soon as a part of the first chapter on the Conquest of the Air was written he was anxious to come up to the office to read it to us. But he didn’t want to inflict himself on us. “You will see to it, won’t you, that attendance is voluntary and not a parade? It must not be like family prayers.” He read it to us, to our great delight, and then took it away to finish. But he was soon finding difficulties as to the length of the early history. “From the cormorant in the Garden of Eden to 1903 will be longish--too long, I think, to be part of a chapter,” and so it became a chapter to itself. This was written during the Easter vacation, and then Oxford claimed him again until the summer. But when June came he was back at work on his history, and the second chapter on the Aeroplane and the Airship was being written. He progressed well. On June the 8th, 1919, he wrote, “I shall have most of a chapter ready when I come, such a chapter full of riddles and shoals.” By the middle of August, Chapters II and III were ready. “I have got another bit done,” he wrote announcing this fact, “completing (but for a tail to be added) Chapter II. It is too long, so Chapter II will have to be Chapters II and III, thus: Chapter II. The Aeroplane and the Airship. Chapter III. The Beginnings of Flight in England.... I have been terribly slow. Some quite small things have cost me hours of turning over pages, not to speak of letters or waiting for answers.” But when the chapters were written they were by no means finished. The Air Ministry had come into being only towards the end of the war. The Royal Air Force itself was formed on April the 1st, 1918, by the amalgamation of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. The records telling of the early history of those two services were scattered. The collection and collation of those records took time. But it was soon seen even in the early days that there would be sad gaps. Some important records were definitely lost. Others were missing. But apart from this even where they were complete, Sir Walter found much difficulty in weaving his story from official records. He wanted so much to get the personal element into his book. Official records he discovered were invented to conceal interesting facts. They were packed in wool and cut no ice. He once complained that he asked for butter and received a cow. So we were always trying to supplement the records with first-hand evidence. Much of this material came late. Many important facts turned up after the chapters had been written. They were constantly being touched up (alas!).