HELICOPTER pilot Simon Cookson, whose family home is in Andover, has just coped with one of the most unusual tasks of his career.

Two months of being marooned on a bleak hill in Skye ended for pregnant heifer, Gael, when Simon rescued her in his Squirrel helicopter.

The animal dangled under the aircraft as she was whisked off to rejoin the other three cows in a small herd.

Simon, aged 36, whose mother Jocelyn Cookson lives in Winterdyne Mews, Weyhill Road, commented: "I think it was the most unusual lift of my career. While in Canada I lifted dead bears but never a live cow."

Gael was put on a hill on the Sleat Peninsula in the autumn. But then came weeks of rain which turned the hillside into a squelching peat bog.

She became stuck on a small rocky knoll without shelter for eight weeks. Daily, whatever the weather, crofter Susan Walker, aged 43, trudged up the hill with a bale of hay on her back to feed the trapped cow.

Simon became Gael's rescuer while he was in the area working for Inverness-based Specialist Helicop-ters, airlifting bundles of fence posts up the hill for a forestry project.

Simon was also involved in the adventures of the Taransay Cast-aways. He made several flights to the island and also flew in the camera crews for the final leave-taking.