Photo Gallery

     Marian and Bruce Aitkin were the parents of well-known runner George Aitkin, a member of the Cambridge Sports Hall of Fame. When Marion (Barrie) was a young girl growing up on a farm west of Galt, she attended a plowing match in North Dumfries. Also there was a young girl named Eleanor Taylor. 

     Eleanor’s parents insisted that Marion accompany their daughter if Eleanor’s dream of flying in a plane was to be realized. A visiting barnstormer pilot was giving rides at the plowing match, and soon Eleanor, accompanied by the older Marion, were up in the air, experiencing the thrill of their young lives. In time, Eleanor attended GCI where, in Frank Ferguson’s class, she met her future husband, Roger, who also had a love for flying and would become a pilot. This love of flight emend to their children. One of their offspring, Chris, became a fighter pilot and an astronaut, eventually flying in the Space Shuttle and going to the International Space Station, where he filmed scenes of space and earth using the IMAX camera. That camera was designed, in part, by Graeme Ferguson, one of the founders of IMAX, and son of Frank, in whose class Eleanor and Roger Hatfield first met. 

     Both Eleanor and Marion had a lifelong love of flight, stemming from that barnstorming flight they took as young girls. At times when it was visible in the skies around Cambridge, Marion would track the shuttle across the sky, being particularly excited when Chris was aboard. With her naked eye from Earth, she even saw Chris and the shuttle dock to the ISS.