The P.1129 was an extended wing version of my twin engined P.1125 which used the P.1121's wing and tail unit. Jack Simmonds in the Design Office did the detailed drawings for a submission. The aircraft did not meet all the requirements but was deemed to offer better all-round capability should scenarios change, as it did for the Hunter which was designed to an interceptor specification but was used for ground attack.
    Meanwhile Avro at Manchester, another Hawker Siddeley (HS) company, had their own design looking very much like how the TSR.2 finished up. It was decreed by senior management that two HS companies should not be seen to be competing against eachother so a meeting was set up at Manchester to sort it out. Kingston sent its top team; Sir Sydney Camm and Ron Williams.
    We went by train to Wilmslow arriving in the late evening where we were to be met by a car from Avro to take us to a hotel (pub) in Macclesfield. However, we arrived in Wilmslow in thick fog with about five yards visibility, and there was no car. The only taxi had already gone. We waited some time; Sir Sydney was not happy. Eventually the taxi, looking like a pre-war London cab, returned and after quite a ride we made it to the hotel.
    Next day was clear and a car took us to the Avro design offices at Chadderton. Coming from the leafy South I was shocked to see fields of smoking factory chimneys on the way, which obviously caused the fog. The meeting was with the Avro big-wigs. I do not remember their names but Roy Dobson or Roy Chadwick might well have been there. It was agreed to submit only the P.1129. Maybe this was to please Sir Sydney after the car fiasco and not because of the eloquence of my argument. On the way to lunch I overheard the Avro people congratulating Sir Sydney on having such a young, talented team around him (big head!) I probably looked about twenty-five then.
    So Kingston submitted but lost to Warton. The P.1127 went ahead ,and as Ralph Hooper is quoted in Roy Braybrook's excellent book 'Harrier and Sea Harrier' (Osprey, 1984), had we won the OR.339 contract the P.1127/Harrier series would not have happened. We would have been left with a void, as was Warton when, as TSR.2, the project was cancelled and the RAF adopted the Navy's HS Buccaneer as an interim solution. However, Warton did go on to make the operationally more flexible Tornado for a similar purpose.
    An example of how changing objectives affect the design is when my proposal for a Jet Provost basic trainer replacement (met later by the turboprop Tucano) was turned by Ralph Hooper into a Gnat replacement advanced trainer, the P.1182/Hawk. Thankfully!