Can You Name This Story? (Part 39: The Brit Who Steals a Spaceship and Kidnaps Children)

Here’s another Name That Story challenge for our readers, sent in by another reader looking for the title of a story read long ago.

Do any of you out there know the title to this story?

This is a Brit question: In the early 1970s, when I was about 9 or 10, my Mum bought me a bundle of short science fiction books in a little boxed set. One was a John Christopher book which I still have, but the other two were, respectively:

• A book called Trillions, which I am not that bothered about
• A great story about a crazed RAF guy who steals a secret British “flying saucer” (a space ship that looks like one) and, to make a protest about nuclear weapons, lands it in a village and kidnaps five or six schoolchildren. I remember now that one of the things he is protesting is that the space ship is a nuclear war refuge for the elite. Anyway, he is dying of radiation poisoning, I believe, incurred when he stole the ship. He dies, while they are all in LEO and the kids have to be coached to pilot the ship down. I remember the protagonist is a very bright but shy black kid called Milo.

I’d love to track this down, as it would be a perfect exciting/interesting read for my 10 year old!

Any help VERY gratefully returned!

– Gary Flood, Lancashire, UK

Can you name this story?