WINGS OVER CHINA
[EDIT: Liège, December 16] ‘Wings for Eternity’ is the story of Charles Van den Born. Van den Born was one of the earliest licensed pilots. He was born on July 11 in 1874 in Liege, and died in January 1958 in France. Before taking up flying, he was a well-known bicycle and automobile racer, and he earned his French pilot’s license on March 8, 1910 in an H Farnham aircraft with his Belgian license on March 31, 1910. Charles Van den Born’s flying career included flight demonstrations in Italy, Nice, in French Indochina, and then in Thailand and China. He was the first to fly to French Indochina, via Vietnam, to Hong Kong, to Thailand, and during WWI he directed the Belgian aviation school in France, and later returned to Indochina. His father, Edouard Van den Born, was not only a professor of the piano but also a celebrated musical choreographer, a musical critic for La Meuse, Liège’s newspaper, with international acclaim. The brother of Edouard, Jean, was also a pianist. They studied in Liège and lived there; but, in fact, came from Gronsveld, near Maastricht, making their story one of the former principality and of and the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion.
A new book, in fact a trilogy, is being published about the pioneering role played by a Liège pilot in China at the beginning of the century. The first part of the trilogy, is called ‘Les Pianistes du Fleuve’, has been published and covers the period from 1800 to 1890. The second part deals with the period 1891 to 1909. The third will cover 1910 to 1958. They are published by Clé Éditions Litéraires, with the assistance of the province of Liège, by the well-known journalist, Le Monde correspondent and author Julien Moës.
http://www.liege.be/