The story of Viscount Stephen Piercey

Visitors looking around the Vickers Viscount named Stephen Piercey at Brooklands Museum will have little idea of the remarkable story behind its return to Brooklands, its birthplace. Few will know why the aircraft bears that name, fewer still that it was once written off in an accident, and even fewer how a group of largely complete strangers came together to save and preserve it.

These pages tell that story, so that everyone can better enjoy this fine aircraft. They have been produced and donated by Andy Lambert, just one of that group.

How it began

In 1990 Brooklands Museum asked me to recover a Vickers Viscount named Stephen Piercey. When I agreed, I had no idea how much this one job would come to mean to me, nor how many wonderful people I would meet through it and, in time, call my friends.

The people who made it happen

They range from Stephen's fantastic parents, Ray and Patsy, to his first-class and diverse friends such as Guy Holman, Tom Singfield and Roger Hargreaves, together with their wives and partners.

They include those who worked on the project: project leader Julian Temple, the engineering legend Mick Bates, Viscount pilots Jock Bryce and Colin Towle, team leaders Ron Brant, John Woodhouse and Paul Rainbird, and British Air Ferries personnel George Burton and Mike Sessions. Lastly there was my own team, Alan, Brian, Ray and Tony, and later Pat and Christine Lambert, who organised the flights we ran to raise funds.

Many others were touched by this project too. We all did our part, and by the time it was done we had all become friends. Sadly, so many of the people named here have since left this life, but I promise their memory will live on through this aircraft.

What we achieved

We saved and restored perhaps the best Viscount, and certainly the one most connected with Brooklands. We did it against the odds and with very little money. Most of all, we did it with love, and perhaps we did it for someone special whom many of us never got to meet, but who clearly meant so much to his friends.

Andy Lambert, summer 2019