Bill Hosie

Bill Hosie built a plane
A survivor from the Schneider Trophy Race
Seemed like a nice old guy
With his baseball cap and his sun-slit eyes
He took the airframe, motor, and wings
And restored all the fabric, the floats, and the struts, and things
And the 'shark on banana skis'
Was heard to roar once more over Cornwall seas

In the '27 Schneider Race
It was a Supermarine that took first place
The year Bill Hosie was born
When there were still tall ships sailin' round Cape Horn
And the S.5 Supermarine
Was the fastest Seaplane the world had ever seen
Nearly 300 miles an hour
With a Napier Lion engine to give her power

And her daughters flew in World War Two
Their pilots were known as 'The First of the Few'
When the Battle of Britain raged
The Spitfire blazed across a history page
But Bill Hosie built a dream
To haunt the skies with the ghost of a Supermarine
And she rose on the steppe again
With the spirit of a Schneider Trophy racing plane

She took to the cool Spring air
With Bill Hosie sitting in the pilot's chair
She banked along the Cornwall shore
Her tail broke away and she flew no more
She fell from her flight of grace
The year they revived the Schneider Trophy Race
And the Supermarine S.5
Was the plane that made Bill Hosie feel alive