As well as items like Did You Know, ROQA’s Children’s Newsroom also features interviews and reports. In addition to offering a broad range of themes, ROQA also highlights aspects of a given topic that will get children’s attention and be of interest to them. For example, in the story of the two pilots Alcock and Brown, attention is drawn to the fact that two stuffed toys were actually taken on the flight as lucky mascots.

Interviews and reports are always illustrated with 1 – 3 images.

The First Trans-Atlantic Flight

The Most Courageous Toy Cats in the World

The two friends, John Alcock and Arthur Brown were the first people to fly non-stop from America to Europe. Our researchers revealed the fact that they didn’t travel alone! The two black toy cats, “Lucky Jim” and “Twinkle Toes” were on board with them. Sessy managed to get an exclusive interview with “Twinkle Toes”. 

Sessy: Never before has anyone dared to cross the Atlantic in an airplane. What kind of difficulties did you have to face?
Twinkle Toes: Well, first thing we had to count crates! We had disassembled our plane in England and packed it in wooden crates and sent them on a cargo ship to Canada. When they arrived in Newfoundland, the next thing we had to do was to re-assemble the plane.
Sessy: Weren’t you afraid to go on this flight?
Twinkle Toes: Not in the beginning, but of course we were very nervous. The fear came later when we couldn’t see the shoreline anymore. Once for example, the plane suddenly dropped steeply – simply dropped!
Sessy: And then, what happened?
Twinkle Toes: We almost hit the sea when John managed to get the plane under control – that was a close shave! We had flown into an air pocket.
Sessy: Were there more scary moments like that?
winkle Toes: Yes, of course! The plane had no shelter so we were sitting out in the open. And how was the weather? Wet of course! All the time rain –drizzle, heavy rain, sleet, hail as big as hazelnuts. We were soaking wet and it was icy cold up there.
Sessy: Well, that’s certainly very uncomfortable but was that the only scary thing?
Twinkle Toes: No! We got really frightened when the glass on the fuel gauge was covered with snow. The problem was that the fuel gauge was out reach: it was on one of the wing supports. Arthur had to climb out of his seat onto the wing – while we were flying! - to clear the glass.
Sessy: Did you have any wonderful experiences?
Twinkle Toes: Yes, sure. For example, when we were flying over the huge floating iceburgs. Another time, when the weather had cleared and we could watch the shadow of our airplane on the surface of the sea. Of course the most incredibly exciting time was when we could see land appearing on the horizon. For nearly 17 hours we hadn’t seen anything except water and suddenly we saw land…we thought we were hallucinating!
Sessy: You have done what no-one has done before. You made the 3000 km journey from America to Europe in an airplane – nonstop! And then at the end of your journey, you almost keeled over! How did that happen?
Twinkle Toes: John made a fantastic landing in a meadow. He landed so smoothly as if he had a load of eggs onboard! But the meadow turned out to be a bog and the wheels got stuck in the mud. Well, that was that.
Sessy: By chance, some farmers were watching your landing. What did they say about your incredible achievement?
Twinkle Toes: Those farmers?! They laughed their heads off when we said we had flown from America – they thought we were kidding. But when we convinced them it was true, their jaws hit the floor.
Sessy: Twinkletoes, thank you very much for this interview.
Twinkle Toes: Miaoooo