Any contraband?: Police search Kirk’s plane before allowing him to
take off

THE SOUND of birds chirping at a very sunny Talbenny Hall Farm was interrupted on Saturday afternoon by the roar of a low flying aircraft circling, looking for somewhere to land. The plane was a 1943 WW2 Piper Cub, believed to have been previously flown by General Patten after June 6 1944 D-Day landings. It’s pilot, just two years younger than the plane itself, was 70-yearold Maurice Kirk. Kirk is a colourful character, who says his life is dominated by his legal actions as a ‘chronic litigant’. He claims that his nightmarish harassments by police in Somerset, Guernsey and South Wales are due to him being assumed to be smuggling drugs with his aeroplanes.

TOUCHING THE CHIMNEY POTS

Raymond Stoddart, owner of Talbenny Hall Farm, explained to The Herald how the unexpected events unfolded at the weekend: “I went for an afternoon snooze in my deck chair in the garden when I noticed a small plane flying very low. It was virtually touching the chimney pots. It circled a few times looking to land. I looked over the hedge after it came down and said ‘are you alright’ to the pilot, who replied ‘yes I am fine but I could do with a cup of tea!’

Mr Stoddart added: “Mr Kirk introduced himself and told me that 45 years ago he landed on Talbenny airfield, damaged the wheel of his plane, and couldn’t take off. He was returning to the spot where that incident happened all that time ago. Of course, there is no airfield now, just grass.”

“When Kirk landed this time, someone contacted the emergency services. The fire brigade and police arrived.”

Speaking on the telephone, Maurice Kirk told The Herald: “I was flying to meet a camera crew in Solva to document my last flying time in the UK before my trip to South Africa. I don’t know if I will every make it back. I could not contact the camera crew, and had to land somewhere. I remembered there was an airstrip in RAF Talbenny, so headed that way.”

He added: “The police turned up, and the officer who dealt with me handled matters spectacularly. Then more police showed up with guns, and searched me, and they accused me of being unfit of flying. After a bit of a stand-off and being searched by the armed officers, I was allowed to get on my way.”

As he took off Kirk said to the police: “You handled the case very well, must congratulate you on your professionalism.”

After a quick flight to the nearby, Dawn Till Dusk Golf Course, where Kirk landed on the green, he came back to Talbenny Hall Farm in his 72 year old plane and stayed the night.

Raymond Stoddart said: “We had a hell of a night, that evening and Mr Kirk polished off all my wine.”

CHEQUE IS IN THE POSTERIOR

In 2010, Kirk has to be stopped from pulling a £7,500 cheque out of his BOTTOM in court when he was on trial for allegedly selling a working machine gun to a collector. He asked the judge if he could give a cheque to his sister to hire a lawyer. Judge Paul Thomas QC asked if it was in his pocket, but Kirk replied: “It’s three inches up my rectum, your honour”

Judge Thomas answered: “In that case your sister probably won’t want it. At the appropriate time you can retrieve it but not in my presence.”

PRESIDENTIAL VISIT

In 2008, Kirk was held after landing his plane near US President George Bush’s ranch. But he insisted that he did not go into restricted airspace. Maurice Kirk, who was a vet until he was struck off the roll in 2002 for his ‘bad boy attitude’ and ‘disgraceful behaviour’, was held in a psychiatric unit after sheriffs detained him minutes after he landed in a field. In February that year he had to ditch his 65-year-old aircraft Liberty Girl in the Atlantic ocean off the Dominican Republic, when he was rescued by US coastguards.

Mrs Kirk said her husband wanted to thank Mr Bush for his rescue from the shark-inhabited waters and said he was adamant he did not stray into the prohibited zone around the ranch.

According to his Facebook page, Kirk’s favourite quote is from Dreyden , a Poet Laureate: “There is a pleasure sure in being mad, that only mad men know.”