You were lucky Rigga. I arrived at Halton from Swinderblitx in Dec '73. As an adult entry mech, we had to march down the hill with the apps to the workshops, back up at lunchtime, back down after etc.
Same when I was there, march down and up 4 times a day with the traffic lot closing off the road at the bottom, the riggers had an underpass to march through, but that was closed for a bit during my time as a fire engine managed to roll on its own from the fire section and then drop into the said underpass
I do wonder if my final test piece is still there, they were relaying the parade square when I was there and I managed to drop it onto the fresh Tarmac to see them roller it into the surface
Nice to see the Gnat in the museum, we took them out during my course, which involved pulling the wings off and dumping the fuselages down the airfield, the museum one looks better than ours ever did as the schools had the nosebay filled with barbed wire steel angle iron supports to keep the nose down.
I remember flying into the place in formation with four other Puma, we had life ex rotors on ours so had to do a BIM check, out came a designated trainee dressed to the nines with day glow and goggles towing a fire ex, arriving at the first he gives them a shut down signal, to be pointed down the line, by the time he got to the adjacent one to us, we as the only one that needed too had shut down, checked the BIM's and started up again. We then all lifted and departed before the poor guy got to us.