memories of Bovingdon Airfield
Does anyone have memories of RAF Bovingdon, near Hemel Hempstead? I solo'd in a glider at age 16 there in 1968, and was lucky enough on the last day of gliding school operation there to get the very last flight in a RAF registered aircraft out of Bovingdon.
Additionally, I first flew as an air cadet passenger there in a Pembroke (WV753), Basset and an Anson (TX227 I think) when the Southern Comms Sqdn were based there. Happy days, when you could cycle up there and hitch rides if you were an ATC cadet... I got to see Leuchars, Wattisham, Thorney Island, Watton, Northolt, Topcliffe and others on my little jaunts...
...I was also there when the last Ansons to fly with the RAF were decomissioned, doing a six-ship formation flypast on a rather cloudy day. We nearly made it on as passengers but rules & regs prevented it in the end. "My" Anson went to Biafra on mercy flights where it ended up getting wrecked.
...Plus the arrival of warbirds there in connection with various films (BofB, 633 Sqdn, Mosquito Sqdn).
To this day, whenever I hear a heavy piston a/c pas over at night, it takes me back to my childhood, snuggled up in bed listening to the southern comms doing their night circuits (& probably in my younger years the USAF DC3s and things that operated out of there - I vaguely remember an open day in the 50s when I was very young).