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Old 20th Jan 2013, 17:30
  #3449 (permalink)  
Geriaviator
 
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Co. Down
Age: 82
Posts: 828
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Some writer called Charles Dickens made his living by publishing his novels chapter by chapter, leaving his readers on tenterhooks until they obtained the next one.
Danny, it's never too late to start a new career ... while we eagerly await the fate of the Lead Soldiers, here's another pic:



Chugalug may like to see a very much younger Geriaviator checking out his Hastings at RAF Khormaksar, February 1953. Another daily visitor was the Hastings' pressurised cousin, the Hermes, which passed through the civil terminal at the opposite (east) end of the airfield.
The Hastings returned us to Lyneham the following day for six months at the ghastly Croft transit camp near Warrington. I visited the site a couple of years ago and the concrete hut bases and roadways still remain, as does the dining hall although its roof has collapsed. The entire site is overgrown and peaceful, though it's not hard to conjure up the ghosts of the thousands who passed through it, never to return.

On the right, 20 years later, the Tiger Moth shows yet another talent, this time as a glider tug. At the end of the war a batch of Tigers, mine included, was given to l'Armee de l'Air which in due course pensioned them off to the French gliding movement. Mine, formerly NL896, built by Morris Motors and the same age as I am, came from Avignon complete with French specification oil temperature gauge, engine fire extinguisher system and glider hook. The British C of A required all to be deleted, but they let me keep the hook. It was sold to Brazil a couple of years ago.

I have found a few more pictures taken by my father, these from Andover in 1938. I shall post them shortly, but only after Danny has produced the second chapter of his current saga

Last edited by Geriaviator; 22nd Jan 2013 at 07:04. Reason: To correct time interval. Never could do sums.
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