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dubbed “Little Nellie” which carried working flame and smoke generators on the tail. It also sported fourteen rockets in packets of seven, fifty parachute mines and two large guided missiles. In addition there were two machine guns firing blanks for the film effects.
All of these devices were actually fired or launched during the film sequences. Not surprisingly a one-man craft packing such a punch and the Wallis machines are being made now under licence for service use. In 1983 Ken’s friend, Squadron Later John Crampton, the Executive of British Aerospace wrote, “Ken is a great man of our time. No one can write a history book about him yet, he’s still busy making history”. That is my problem here writing about the Wallis family.
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There have been diversions over the years. In the mid 1930’s Ken tried his hand at designing and making a perfect rakish two seater car using two overlapping Austin Seven chassis, with the end of the front one turned upwards to facilitate better steering and an Austin Seven engine. Ken made it himself using aluminium sheet for the entire body. He also |
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made his own forming tools.
In 1932 Ken Wallis started his
DIY experiments with powerboats. He always named them, ‘Per Ardua’, which is the first half of the RAF. Motto, Through Adversity”. They never get, ‘ad Astra’, to the stars! Per Ardua XIV” was built at Southwick in 1959 While in the RAF during the latter part of the war, Ken Wallis worked on a sub-miniature camera which used 16mm films and was able to take over one hundred exposures on each loading. He also made sub-miniature firearms, a breech-loading pistol only 1.125” long, 052”calibre Just after the war Ken salvaged an old Chris Craft hull from a boat yard in Southwick. It was a rather tatty hull but with some cleaning and repairs it was able to take a large 7.5 litre “Silver Ghost car engine which he had fitted at a boat yard in Southwick.. Ken lived at Brunswick Square, Hove at the time. The boat was ideal for mackerel spinning. The Rolls-Royce engine was such a quiet runner at slow tick over. Ken used an old oil cooler from a Lancaster ‘Merlin’ engine! Passing the engine cooling water through the oil ways and the salt water through the water section of the cooler. In 1945, Ken Wallis acquired a 4.5-ton Gaff-Rigged cutter and re-rigged it as a Bermudan Cutter with a new mast. It was ideal for cross- Channel sailing. In 1946 he sailed himself to France from Shoreham. In those days unexploded Mortar bombs could be seem rather too close to the keel for comfort when sailing out of St. Valerie en Crux. In 1949, while living at Church Lane, Southwick. Ken Wallis purchased a 1924 Rolls- Royce Silver Ghost from Frank Deacon a car repairer in Brighton. At the time |
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