As a Telecommunications Officer during the years 1950 to 1980, Peter Stark Lansley worked in Air Traffic Control at a number of airports, his last being Heathrow Airport where he retired in 1981.
During his time with the Ministry of Aviation and the Board of Trade he was at Birdlip Radio Station (Prestwick Oceanic, Cheltenham) and was posted to the airports on Alderney, the Isles of Scilly and Lympne.
Returned to the Island
As Peter’s final posting was to Heathrow Airport, he decided to remain with his family in Cheltenham taking lodgings in West Drayton and commuting home at weekends. Upon retirement in 1981 he returned to the Isle of Wight, where he had been brought up, settling in Alverstone Garden Village.
It was during this time of Peter’s postings that his son Charles remembers him coming home and reading out extracts of the book he was writing. He also used to tell stories of conversations he had had with King Hussein of Jordan and the Duke of Edinburgh, both of whom always liked to take over the controls when landing at Heathrow.
Filling time with writing
As Peter was away from home for such long periods of time, and as there was not much to do after work except go to the pub, he set about writing his autobiographical novel, Pon My Puff (which means something like ‘My Godfathers!’, expressing surprise).
Peter’s Son, Dr Charles Morris Lansley, author of Darwin’s Debt to the Romantics, discovered his late father’s autobiographical novel in manuscript form in a trunk in his father’s garage in 2013 after his death in 1999. The book had been written out by hand in a series of notebooks sometime between the 1950s and 1980s.
Re-published as a second edition
The book was originally published by Beachy books 60 years after it was written and was a great success. But sadly, the publisher ceased trading in 2024, and the book went out of print. So Charles Lansley, 74, went on a rescue mission to try and find a publisher to prevent it from ending up in a dusty old trunk again and to enable this much-loved book to be available again.
After a long search, Charles was fortunate. The book has now been re-published as a second edition by Austin Macauley on 15th August 2025.
True story of a child’s 1920s Island upbringing
The book was originally published under the title ‘Pon My Puff: A childhood in 1920s Isle of Wight’ by Peter Stark Lansley. The autobiographical novel is a true story of a child’s 1920s Island upbringing by his grandparents.
With his father away at sea with the Navy, Peter was brought up by his mother Annie, a school teacher, and her parents — initially in East Cowes and later Wootton on the Isle of Wight.
Written from a child’s world view
Written from a child’s world view, the book offers a glimpse into the Island’s landscape of a bygone century , and is driven by the magical and loving relationship between Peter and his grandparents, William and Harriette Stark.
The delights of childhood are shared through innocent musings on God, the afterlife and the cemetery at Mount Joy, Carisbrooke, to wonderful evocations of Christmas, as well as misadventures with his first ‘girlfriend’, Victoria, at Wootton Creek.
Annotated to add contemporary context
To help the reader locate the people, places and events in the stories, Charles has added annotations to add contemporary context to what family and Island village life was like at the time.
The book takes place during an age when the steam train ran supreme, when there was no electricity or telephone, and when it was safe for a five-year-old to walk into the village alone.
A charming tale of what village life was like in the 1920s
Charles said,
“When I was a child, my father would read odd extracts from a book he’d been writing. He wanted to get it published but he worked in public air travel and was in great demand, so didn’t have much free time.
“When my mum died in 2013, I looked everywhere for his book, top to bottom, but couldn’t find it. The last place I looked was the garage, where I spotted a rusty old trunk with 12 exercise books in it, although the information was in a bit of a muddle and took several years to get in order.
“On one level I realised there was amazing family history on the pages, and on another a beautiful, charming tale of what village life was like in the 1920s.”
Deep research
Charles researched the names of all village members his father came into contact with, so readers interested in family history may find references to their own heritage. Peter was born in Portsmouth in 1919 with a strong naval background and died in Shanklin in 1999. During the Second World War, he was a Radio Officer in the Merchant Navy.
While serving on MV Wandby as Second Radio Officer, his ship was sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Iceland after being torpedoed on 19th October 1940. He was lucky to survive. He served as a radio officer aboard various other ships until being released from the Merchant Navy in 1946 after which he worked for the Ministry of Aviation until he retired in 1981.
Buy your copy
‘Pon My Puff: A Childhood in 1920s Isle of Wight’ was re-published on 15th August 2025 by Austin Macauley and can once again be purchased or ordered from all book shops or online.
News shared by Charles, in his own words. Ed
