The Shepherd

The Shepherd relates the story of a De Havilland Vampire pilot, going home on Christmas Eve 1957, whose aircraft suffers a complete electrical failure en route from RAF Celle in northern Germany to RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk. Lost in fog over the North Sea, low on fuel, no working compass or radio, the pilot begins flying in small triangles, an odd flying pattern which would be detected on radar. An air traffic controller would be notified, and would send other aircraft to find him and "shepherd" (i.e. guide) him to Merriam St. George, the closest airstrip he was aware of.

He encounters a World War II era De Havilland Mosquito fighter-bomber and recalls that the meteorological squadron used the last of the Mosquitoes to prepare weather forecasts. The Mosquito’s pilot used hand signals to give the Vampire’s pilot flight commands. At one point the Vampire’s pilot sees the nose of the Mosquito, which had the letters JK painted on it.

The pilot followed the Mosquito, and when the Vampire's fuel gage was at zero the Mosquito pilot gave hand signals to indicate "There you are fly on and land." Suddenly runway lights came on and the pilot was able to land the Vampire, though he was out of fuel. He knew that after an emergency landing a fire truck, ambulance and other vehicles would immediately be sent out to him. Ten minutes later a car driven by an older lieutenant came up to the plane. The pilot learns he is at RAF Minton, which hasn’t been an operational station for years, and is now a storage depot. Due to the stores clerks being on Christmas leave the lieutenant and an 70-year-old civilian mess steward were the only two on duty at the storage depot. When the lieutenant heard a low flying plane he had turned on the runway lights, which had never been disconnected.

The pilot makes a late-night telephone call to RAF Merriam St. George and learned no local pilots were authorized to fly that foggy evening. so the air traffic control tower had not been manned since five o’clock. No one had been sent out to shepherd him to safety. He then called the meteorological squadron and was told they had scrapped the outdated Mosquitoes three months ago. He hung up the telephone and thought someone must have bought one of the old Mosquitoes, happened to be flying on Christmas Eve, saw a pilot flying in small triangles, and led him to the storage depot, which had the closest airstrip.

The lieutenant told him Joe, the mess steward, was preparing a room for him. Joe started a fire in the room’s fireplace, brought the pilot food, and stayed to talk. The mess steward said he worked at RAF Minton for twenty years. During the war there had been many young fliers, but the best one had been John Kavanaugh, who had had the room they were now in. The pilot walked over to a framed old photo of a young pilot beside a Mosquito with JK painted on its nose. Joe said that during the war, after the squadron had returned, John Kavanaugh would refuel his Mosquito and go out alone, searching for any crippled bombers to guide them home.

The pilot thought Kavanaugh must have bought his old Mosquito with JK painted on it, still flew it on occasion, had seen a plane in distress and directed it to his old base. Before Joe left the room he told the pilot that Kavanaugh died on Christmas Eve, 1943, when he went down with his plane in the North Sea.

Forsyth created this original work as a Christmas gift to his first wife Carrie after she requested a ghost story be written for her. Written on Christmas Day 1974, and published near that time a year later, the idea came while trying to think of a setting away from the typical haunted homes, and seeing planes flying overhead. Many have speculated references to preexisting RAF folklore. While Forsyth is a former RAF pilot and could have heard and adapted such a story (either with or without the intent to do so) no references or anecdotal evidence have been put forward to support such claims.

The story has been broadcast "nearly every Christmas since 1979" in Canada on the CBC Radio One news programme As It Happens.[1] Read by Alan Maitland, the recording always airs on the last episode on or before Christmas Eve. In 2018, for the 50th Anniversary special of As it Happens[2] Carol Off, Michael Enright, and Tom Power celebrated the tradition of reading The Shepherd by reading lines from the story.

On 14 December 2014, actor Nigel Anthony performed an original adaptation by Amber Barnfather of The Shepherd, with music and sound effects, at St Clement Danes, the Central Church of the Royal Air Force, in London. The performance, in aid of the RAF Benevolent Fund, was introduced by Frederick Forsyth. Sound design was by David Chilton, with a cappella pieces from the Saint Martin Singers.

On Christmas Eve 2016, BBC Radio 3 broadcast a new adaptation by Amber Barnfather for Between the Ears, performed by actor Luke Thompson.[3] Sound design was by David Chilton, with music and mouth/body percussion by the Saint Martin Singers specially recorded for the production at the church of St Giles in the Fields, and Vampire aircraft sound effects specially recorded at the Royal Air Force Museum London. Between the Ears: The Shepherd won a 2017 New York Festivals Radio Gold Award.[4] In April 2017, Between the Ears won the ‘Most Original Podcast’ Gold Award at the inaugural British Podcast Awards.[5]

In 2022, John Travolta confirmed that he is currently filming a cinematic version of The Shepherd on location in West Raynham, Norfolk.[6]

• List of Christmas-themed literature

• A. Bowdoin Van Riper (2004). Imagining flight: aviation and popular culture. Texas A&M University Press. pp. 125–26. ISBN 978-1-58544-300-0.
• Mary Lou Finlay (2009). The As It Happens Files: Radio That May Contain Nuts. Random House of Canada. p. 33. ISBN 978-0-307-39663-1.

• 'Fireside' Al Maitland reads Frederick Forsyth's The Shepherd at cbc.ca