Remembering Australian Aviation’s Eric Allen

Eric Allen contributed to this magazine for more than 40 years until his death last September. But, as Adam Thorn discovers, a second chance led him towards the two loves of his life.

For a man known to Australian Aviation readers for his obsessive attention to detail, Eric Allen certainly botched the landing when he first clapped eyes on his future wife, Hedy. “I met him at a mutual friend’s place in the mid-60s,” Hedy tells me today. “They had a pool in Northbridge, Sydney, with a nice water view, and both Eric and I were invited by our families. But there was another young woman there, about my age, and she had a very good figure. The man didn’t even give me the time of day! He walked straight past me to this bikini-clad wonder! I just wrote him off as arrogant, to be honest.”

Fast forward a mind-boggling 10 years, and the pair would serendipitously be brought together for a second time, again at another mutual friend’s get-together. Hedy spoke to Eric and, this time around, decided he wasn’t so bad, after all. “But then I remembered who he was!” she chuckles. Hedy confronted Eric, but he played dumb, denying they’d ever met. “He knew! But afterwards, he rang me, we went out, and it worked.” The couple were married for 47 years until Eric sadly died last September aged 83.