United by the remnants of a World War II Spitfire bequeathed to Don, who is suffering the early stages of dementia and struggling to maintain contact with the world, On a Wing and a Prayer reignites a friendship between Emily and Tom, almost sweethearts from long ago. There is a touching kindness in Tom’s reassurance for a man who is unable to understand his rapidly deteriorating grasp on reality. The Spitfire is laid out on Emily’s property in a jigsaw of pieces and magnetises the interest of each for very different reasons. It attracts the curious, those with memories of the war and a passion for planes, and others who reflect on the disappointments, mistakes and the triumphs in their lives. The novel personifies the cloistered respectability and old-time values of small country towns, where everyone knows your name. It poses questions barely audible in contemporary society of what it is like to be old, and the expectation that life is somehow over at seventy.

Peter Bensley has chosen an unusual and neglected subject for his first novel. Despite a degree of sentimentality and unbelievability, the reader should venture further than the literal and consider the metaphorical flight of fancy that exposes an evocative illustration of the value of a person’s life.