Bovingdon Memories
In those wonderful ATC years managed to scrounge a flight to Bovingdon in a Devon from Northolt.
The idea was then you "scrounged" another flight to somewhere else and eventually made it back to where you started from even if it meant a night stop and a meal ticket (1 shilling)
However our plans all went to pot when we landed to find camo netting over the control tower and the remains of a Mosquito still lying on the grass.
It was just after "633 Squadron" with lines of Ansons a couple of Pembrokes and some american "prop" jobs.
In fact Bov was just like Kenley (a time warp) but Bov still had its aircraft.
We missed our return to Northolt due to wandering into the hangar to find "two more" complete Mosquito's with the cockpit doors down and steps in place.
A couple of hours and several missions later we wandered back to the tower to be told that another aircraft was going to Northolt if we wanted a lift back.
Many years later whilst working in the area for a day i went back to find the builders busy building a prison.
The control tower was still nearly intact at that stage so i stood on its balcony (of "you cant kill a squdron" fame) to look across where the ghost of the mossie lay.
BOV still survives though in the odd "Avengers" repeats.
Would have thought the control tower would have made a good ATC HQ for a local squadron (no vision in England)