Driving past Northolt Airfield generates so many memories of growing up just up the hill. I'd get on my bike and cycle over to the airport to watch the planes. Sometimes I'd be there all day. I loved the romance of the place, especially as it was home of the Polish Spitfire aces during the war. I would often imagine what it would have been like for the pilots and I have always been a bit in awe of them, aware of the huge sacrifices they made.
There were people we knew who remembered seeing dogfights in the skies over the airfield. I grew up in Northolt and used to work in my parents' hardware shop. We had quite a few Polish ex-airmen coming in who had settled over here after the war. It was a joy to chat to them and my father always made a great fuss of them; brewing up a cup of tea or spending time to see how they were doing
But it must have been horrific. Life expectancy was pathetically short. Guy Mayfield was a chaplain at fighter airfields during the War. His touching diaries record deep conversations with many a doomed youth. Most of these conversations were about death and what followed it, or how to have a little bit of life before an inevitable end. He was struck by the tragedy of lives cut short before they could flourish – before the young men could be husbands and fathers and grandfathers.
At one point Mayfied laments, 'All one's prayers can't keep them in the skies.' In this perhaps he says something about difficulty of keeping praying against the odds. We pray for people but sometimes the bad things we fear still happen.
I have heard many explanations. They are reasonable and good efforts. Many prayers remain unanswered because we pray for the wrong things, or we pray for things to work in a way that wouldn't eventually be for the good. That surely is true.
But I put myself in the place of the Reverend Mr Mayfield. He grew to love the young pilots but he felt that whatever he prayed their life and death was a lottery. Or at least, he felt that in his worst moments. But he kept praying – not as a ritual, but because in his heart it was what he could do and he still believed in the God of love and justice.
I do not know why some prayers remain unanswered. When I meet God face to face I hope to be able to ask him. What I know is that I will continue praying each day and that at times in prayer I have such a sense of deep peace that I know that 'all shall be well'.
I sometimes think about the enormous difficulties faced by those I love. I prayed with real urgency this morning for someone in my family that I love. I prayed that God would 'keep her in the skies'. I sometimes feel like Mayfield, walking across a windswept airfield, watching people he cared about take off towards an encounter with destiny and praying that they returned home safely. My prayers are with you and all those you pray for.
Rev Steve Morris is the parish priest of St Cuthbert's North Wembley. Before being a priest he was a writer and ran a brand agency. In the 1980s he tried to become a pop star. Follow him on Twitter @SteveMorris214
