Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum

Tuesday 20 August 2002. We left Billingford Mill and headed for our next source of interest and wonderment. Which we found at a disused World War II aerodrome, now a museum. With free entry no less.

The Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum turned out to be an absolute gem. This part of England was home to many squadrons of the RAF during World War II and saw much action as the German Luftwaffe either flew over on their way to or from bombing raids, or flew intentionally to RAF bases to knock them out of commission.

There were displays of aircraft standing all around representing many different periods and many different countries' air forces.

Given that Suffolk and Norfolk were on routes used by the Axis forces to and from bombing raids and that many of our own returning fighters and bombers would be trying to get back whilst shot up and badly damaged, the surrounding countryside has more than its fair share of crash sites, some of which have been excavated. Here a pile of twisted and battered aircraft parts, laboriously dug out of the ground were stored, some awaiting appraisal and identification.

A Vickers Valetta C2 used for VIP transport with the RAF in Malta, Egypt and Cyprus. The Valetta entered service in 1950, replacing the DC3 Dakota.

This aircraft was open to visitors and I went inside to take a look. This is one of only eleven aircraft built. The C2 was a specialised VIP transport. The bulk of the RAF's Valettas were C1 variants which had been designed for a number of roles and internal configurations, including troop carrying, wounded transports and glider towing. Internal fittings were made to be easily removed and fitted as required for different roles. Production of the C1 totalled 211 aircraft.

Inside the C2, the seating was arranged to face the tail of the aircraft. Typically they could seat between 9 to 25 passengers.

Every passenger comfort catered for... Ventilation controls and outlet and a button to call the steward's attention.

More displays could be found in the museum's large buildings. Gun turrets from medium to large bomber aircraft.

Tail gunners in particular were extremely vulnerable. Squashed into tiny turrets with knees up at chest height, there wasn't much chance of making a fast getaway in case of disaster, and after several hours cramped into position, you would be very stiff, freezing cold, and grateful of any assistance to get you out and straightened up even when the plane landed without having seen enemy fighters.

There's no such thing as a junk corner in a place like this - just collections of, as yet, unidentified parts and items without context.

This Spitfire wasn't a real aircraft, but was one of the many replica props built for the filming of the 1969 movie, The Battle of Britain.

There were many glass cases filled with Airfix or Revell 1/72 scale plastic model aircraft and I could have happily stood drooling over the many kits I remembered building as a boy.

The Gloster Javelin was the world's first delta winged twin jet fighter. This example dates from 1958 and was used to support the Zambian Government against Rhodesia.

Great Yarmouth 2002 Index

Blackpool's Dakotas of Air Atlantique

In early 1981 we regularly saw two Douglas DC3 Dakotas flying off in the morning over Blackpool, accompanied by a couple of other large triple-tailed aeroplanes - Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneer 3s.

The Daks were owned by Air Atlantique who flew charter work and contract work out of Blackpool Airport. However this strange activity of four aeroplanes heading out together was for a much more exciting reason.

The two Dakotas had been repainted in the livery of the fictional Ruskin Air Services and were being used in a soon-to-be-aired TV series called Airline. It starred Roy Marsden as the ex World War Two pilot, desperate to continue flying at the end of the war. The two Twin Pioneer planes were acting as camera platforms for air-to-air filming.

The show was quite a success and two series were made, plus the main characters used in an advertisement several years later for an expanded capacity Manchester Airport. By 1982 when this shot was taken, the two Dakotas were back in Air Atlantique livery.

For a while this was not dissimilar to the TV livery, but this was about to be changed.

The leading aircraft here is already in the new livery which did away with the long stripe down the fuselage for a pure white with three diagonal splashes of colour near the front of the aeroplane which were echoed down the tailplane and rear fuselage.

On 6 June 1982 Blackpool held it's annual air show on the airport and it was possible in those less Health & Safety conscious days, to get up close to the aircraft on the tarmac - though a formidable piece of string kept visitors from running onto the runway itself... Short flights in one of the Dakotas were available on the day and there was no shortage of people wanting to take advantage of the chance. However they were £10 each and I was unemployed at the time and had, my diary reminds me, a princely 90 pence in my pocket...

I've always thought that the Dakota was one of the most beautiful of aeroplanes - if an aeroplane can be called 'beautiful'. This aeroplane left Air Atlantique in 1988 and since 2003 has been exhibited at the Aviodrome aviation museum in the Netherlands. G-APML, seen in an earlier photo above ended up being scrapped and the nose sent to Kuwait as dressing in a restaurant.

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A Weekend at Brooklands, London and Hampton Court Palace

Friday, 23 March 2018. We had booked ourselves in at the Weir Hotel and Pub in Walton-on-Thames and were going to fulfil a long-nurtured desire to visit Hampton Court, once home to Henry VIII and a few following kings and queens of England.

We motored down from Blackpool along the M6 wondering again why so many miles of motorway should be coned off and speed restricted for just a few yards of actual activity. By the time we got down onto the M25 and the land of drivers with evil glares, ever willing to open up a space to let you in then speeding into it themselves blaring their horns, we decided to visit Brooklands Race Track and Museum.

This was the first racing track in the world, constructed in 1907 and the site of many early speed records. It was also an early centre of aviation with aircraft factories and events centred there. The 1965 comedy film Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines is centred around a race track "Brookfield" that looks remarkably like Brooklands.

The track was steeply banked to allow the cars to achieve higher speeds on the curves. Only portions of the track still survive.

At this point the far edge of the track is 29 feet above the lower part. If you visit, do not be tempted to try to climb it. It is slippery and dangerous and a long way down, rolling and having your skin scraped off! I remained on the lower level with only a brief calculating glance wondering how far I'd get up even with a sprint. But then... I'm a bit past my sprinting years... About 50 years past them I think...

This was the finishing straight. The barriers were being placed that afternoon to cater for an event celebrating the Mini which would take place over the weekend with many hundreds of Minis being brought by clubs and individual owners. I had one myself in 1972. Great fun and much better to my mind than the ever expanding things that bear the Mini name these days.

In fairness to the museum at Brooklands I am not showing lots of photos of the fabulous collection of cars and aeroplanes in the collection. Apart from this which was a great surprise and joy. Babs was the Land Speed Record car of John Godfrey Parry Thomas. On 27 April 1926 Parry Thomas set a new World Record, taking his car through the measured mile at Pendine Sands in South Wales at a speed of 169.3 miles per hour (averaged from a two-way trip through the mile). Knowing it wasn't high enough to last for long he returned the next day and achieved 171.02 mph. On 4 February 1927 Sir Malcolm Campbell raised the record to 174.88 mph.

Parry Thomas made another attempt on 3 March 1927 on the sands, but his car was trailing smoke. On his return run Babs slewed sideways, rolled and then carved a gouge out of the sand as it spun round to a halt. Spectators raced to the rescue but found a grisly scene. Warning! Skip now to the next paragraph if you are of a sensitive nature... Parry was still sitting in the driving seat but some part of the car, possibly the chain that drove the rear wheels from the engine and which had snapped at around 2000 revs, had taken off a part of his head, which was lying on the sand at the side of the car.

Parry Thomas was buried at Byfleet Church at Brooklands. The car was left on and eventually sank beneath Pendine Sands. In 1969 she was excavated by Welshman Owen Wyn Owen and painstakingly restored. Parry Thomas had bought her for £125 from Count Louis Zborowski, whose racing cars were all named Chitty Bang Bang. Sounds familiar? Babs had been Chitty Bang Bang 4. Powered by its rebuilt 27-litre Liberty aero engine, it is once again in racing condition.

Similarly with the fabulous collection of aircraft, including the first British Concorde, VC10, Harrier Jump Jet, Wellington, Sopwith Camel, SE5a and Vickers Vimy and many more - this is the only photo I'm showing. This is the intrepid crew of His Majesty, The Sultan of Oman, Qaboos bin Said Al Said's Vickers VC10 which was designed and built at Brooklands and is fitted out in the most opulent and luxurious manner once behind the cockpit. Even the toilet is spacious enough to allow the Sultan's valet to be in attendance.

Time was marching on and we took our leave of Brooklands, having spent a fabulous hour and a half there. Even so we missed several exhibits including the entire building housing London buses. We'll wait for next time when three will come round together...

This is The Weir at Walton-on-Thames. Basically a pub but it was very comfortable, we were welcomed and looked after and the food was excellent. We had the room with the three windows in the gable above the open door on the right and had a lovely view over the river and use of the balcony.

There is, as the name suggests, a weir on the river at this point but it is on the far side of the river and it was possible only to see the foam produced by water pouring over the out-spill and not the out-spill itself. On our side of the river an unobstructed channel allowed small boats and skiffs to by-pass the weir.

On the Saturday we caught a train from Walton station into Waterloo, London and walked our feet off, visiting Westminster Abbey and then walking up to and along the shops of Regent Street and Oxford Road before heading back to Waterloo. I have to say I found Westminster Abbey disappointing. You can no longer get into the Shrine of Edward the Confessor where many of our past kings are buried, but have to pay extra to do so in a small group. "It's a very delicate area and the jewels have all been stolen from the shrine," I was told when I asked the reason for the closure. They didn't mention that the jewels were stolen many hundreds of years ago and that they were simply taking more money off people who had already paid a not inconsiderable entry fee.

My other gripe is that so many of the tombs are not labelled, but have lengthy Latin inscriptions in a far from easy to read font and even with a vague smattering of latin I wasn't able to determine who was in most of them. Elizabeth I's tomb is obvious as is King Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth of York (the White Princess). But I'm not really sure if I identified Margaret Beaufort's monument correctly and couldn't find Anne Neville, the widow of King Richard III at all. I'm afraid I came out feeling rather cheated...

We had been told that it was a walk of about three miles to Hampton Court, from the hotel along the tow path of the Thames. I'd have thought nearer to four miles. I don't have long legs at my manly five foot five and on Sunday morning it took us about one hour and twenty minutes to walk there, not counting a short break for a morning coffee at East Moseley Cricket Club.

The weather kept dry, even if it wasn't promising anything and the views along the river were pleasant, but we were happy to come to a bridge across the river and see the Palace of Hampton Court beyond it.

Once again I am not going to publish any photographs of the fabulous interiors. You are allowed to take photographs in most rooms apart from the Crown Room holding the replica of King Henry VIII's state crown and the Cumberland Gallery where some very famous and well-known paintings are hung. The Great Hall is huge and instantly recognisable from TV programmes such as The Tudors or Wolf Hall. There is the Haunted Gallery - part of Henry's processional route from his quarters to preside over his wider Court on Sundays and Holy Days. Along this corridor his fifth queen, Catherine Howard, about to be arrested for adultery in 1541, ran to find Henry and plead her innocence but was seized by guards almost within reach of his door and was dragged screaming back to her own rooms. It is said that her ghost haunts the gallery. But she must have been taking the day off...

But it is an earlier queen, Queen Anne Boleyn, mother of Queen Elizabeth I, for whom much of the royal palace was furnished and built. Thomas Wolsey had created a spectacular palace here and in 1525 presented it to the king. Unable to secure the King a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, Henry chucked him out of the palace in 1529 and started building anew, spending vast sums of money to create chambers for his intended new bride. She was never to take up residence here. Looking across the Clock Courtyard, to Anne Boleyn's Gate, which was at least named after her. Perhaps not by Henry....

The astronomical clock with its single hand has a 24-hour dial around the edge, a rotating outer dial showing the day, date and current sign of the zodiac and an inner lunar dial rotating to show the phase of the moon. High and low tides are indicated - essential as the principle form of transport to London was by barge, as the rapids between the piers of London Bridge were very treacherous.

After the walk to the palace and then a few hours walking around it, we decided to ride back to the hotel and, walking down to the railway station, picked up a taxi without any problem. We got back a good deal quicker than we had taken to make the outward journey that morning!

It was now Sunday afternoon and the pub was very busy. We found a table and sat with a drink, or two, whiling away the afternoon before deciding it was time to eat. I took a couple of photos of the bar as it was starting to go dark. A company whose premises were opposite the rear of the pub found a car parked right across their entrance and phoned to see if it was someone at the pub. The staff made enquiries but no-one admitted to it and over the course of the next hour, much excitement was made of the arrival of the Police and eventually a tow truck... Someone was going to return to their car a sadder and hopefully less self-important person than they had been when they ignored the possibility of the entrance being in use!

And then the sun went down in spectacular style across the river. Was it just those stories of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, or was there really a headless ghost haunting the riverside?

A final look at the Weir Hotel Walton-on-Thames. I would without hesitation recommend it.

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Bank Holiday In Fleetwood

Bank Holiday Monday, 30 May 2016. We had gone south of Blackpool to St Annes on the Sunday so today we head north and come to Fleetwood.

We head for a sunny Fleetwood to walk down from the boating lake to the ferry and back. For a change I decided to fit my telephoto lens to the camera and see what I could find to photograph with it. This is Fleetwood Mount, seen over the putting greens.

There's a model boating pond and a second boating lake where dingy sailing used to be taught. When I worked at the Nautical College in 1985-6 they used to use this lake and had an enclosed lifeboat on davits and a couple of large lifeboats on the water, which are still there. I've not seen them in use for a long time, so am not sure if they are still owned by the college or not.

As we got down onto the seafront near the "Lower" lighthouse, one of the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company's craft was speeding past Wyre Light out in the bay. The telephoto was at 300mm for this and there's quite a bit of heat haze messing up the image I'm afraid. Heat haze off the north west coast - who'd have thought...?

I've pulled back the zoom a bit on this one but even so, if you make out the tiny figures of fishermen on the first spit of land then you'll get an idea of just how far out Wyre Light is.

Dandelions are taking over the beach! They are intent on taking over my lawn too, come to think of it...

Another full zoom, looking across the broad expanse of the estuary and Pilling Sands to Heysham Power Station. The tide recedes two and a half miles here and comes in faster than you can run. The sandbanks are riddled with gullies that fill up even faster as the tide approaches and these can cut you off from land very quickly. Given that there can be over ten metres (32.5 feet) difference between low tide and high tide you can see why Morecambe Bay is one of the UK's most dangerous places to decide to amble out for a stroll...

Knott End ferry landing across the River Wyre. That sandbank is the reason that even when it is covered and looks to be just river, the ferries do a dog-leg manoeuvre to get to the landing!

Flowers. Don't ask, I don't know. They just looked nice! If I was pressed all I could offer would be: pink flowers...

Between the gardens and buildings of the Marine Park and the site where Fleetwood's pier used to be, a path leads down to follow the seafront which heads off at right angles as the River Wyre channel also bends to head out to sea. From the path we get another glimpse of Fleetwood Mount.

Fleetwood Beach Lighthouse. Designed by Decimus Burton and Captain H. M. Denham in 1839. It is partner to the much taller Pharos Lighthouse, a little farther inland. Known locally as the "upper and lower lights", ships coming into Fleetwood up the River Wyre estuary had to keep the lights directly one above the other to know they were safely in the deep water channel.

The squat building to the left, built on stilts over the beach is - or was, I'm not sure if it is still used - a radar training facility, part of what is now the Nautical Campus of Blackpool & The Fylde College.

Having taken the beach path we are now away from road traffic and in an area much favoured by walkers, holiday makers and cyclists. A row of beach huts adds a bit of colour to the scene.

I never got into the beach hut thing. My parents when I was a child would rather sit on the deck chairs on the beach, sometimes with a wind break if it was really rough and would happily force us to eat sandwiches (such an apt name) that were gritty with sand. Well, it did me no harm. Coffee or tea came from a stall on the Promenade and the only concession to the blowing sand was a saucer placed on top of any open jugs of water or milk. The cups just filled up and we tipped them upside down before pouring into them.

A general view of the beach between the Marine Hall and Rossall Point - the weirdly-shaped building in the far distance is Rossall Point Observation Tower. Open to the public it provides a viewpoint over Morecambe Bay. It is a facility of the National Coastwatch Institution.

Pleasure flights and pilot training flights from Blackpool Airport often pass over the town. The telephoto lens picks this one out nicely. I did this myself on my 40th birthday. Of course the plane then was more like Biggles would have been used to in World War One...

Finally we complete our round trip and arrive back at the boating lake and our car.

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