An airline pilot visited his old school to talk about his journey from growing up on a North Yorkshire farm to his career in aviation.

Graham Trewitt was born into a farming family near Newton-le-Willows, and attended Bedale High School between 1985 and 1989 before moving on to Askham Bryan College, studying agriculture.

During his spare time he bought a microlight to satisfy his burning ambition to take to the skies and eventually paid for his private pilot’s licence in the late 1990s, involving 40 hours of studying, 20 hours of dual flying and ten hours of solo flying.

He highlighted to year nine students at Bedale High School the commitment and courage he had to have to take on something completely different, to satisfy his long-held dream to fly.

He joined the St George’s Flying Club at Teesside Airport and gained his pilot instructor's licence before finally having the courage to push on to try to achieve his commercial pilot’s licence, involving 20 examinations over two years, and 200 hours of flight training to qualify to fly a single engine Piper Cherokee aircraft.

This passion to fly intensified as he moved onto twin engine aircraft before getting his first commercial job in 1999 with Debonair Airlines, flying throughout Europe.

He then joined Jet2.Com flying out of Leeds Bradford Airport where he stayed for six years before an opportunity presented itself in 2011 to move to Dubai to take up a career with Emirates Airlines, flying Boeing 777s long haul, to every continent and every major city in the world.

Darlington and Stockton Times: Graham Trewhitt standing inside one of the engines of a Boeing 777

In 2022, after 11 years in the United Arab Emirates he took up a career with DHL flying freight out of East Midlands Airport to the USA, Japan and Hong Kong. Jokingly, he calls himself a "flying postman".

Graham talked about his longest ever flight from Dubai to Auckland in New Zealand, which was almost 19 hours, and his shortest, a nine-minute flight taking Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher from Northolt to Luton.

The students were fascinated about his "close calls" utilising the TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) when aeroplanes come within 1,000 feet of each other, and his two mayday calls when, he says, you put into practice the things you train for every six months in the flight simulator.

He finished by chatting about the things people leave on aeroplanes, the main one being passports left in seat pockets and surprisingly, babies which are often left board by mistake.

Married to Christine, Graham, who has more than 15,000 hours of flying time, now lives in Harrogate where his boys attend St Aiden’s School and, whilst he intends to continue flying, his spare time is spent building an aeroplane in his garage.