mmitch,
A few more points come to mind when re-viewing this wonderful video. I never even knew of the existence of this footage until now (reminds me of Chugalug's video of the Vultee Vengeances in India months ago - I knew nothing about that before, and I was out there at the time !)
The reference to the FCU's "Town Headquarters" may need explanation. All the Auxiliary flying squadrons must obviously be based on an airfield. But a FCU can be anywhere (one was at Alton Towers, which I think was a big leisure Centre). They had to be somewhere where their people could easily and quickly reach them on public transport, for only the officers would generally have cars.
So they were based in a town centre for the most part; they would do their basic and synthetic trade training there, and presumably be bussed out at weekends to the particular "hole" where they did their practical training as Radar Operators and Fighter Plotters. For that reason the Town HQs could not be too far away from the ROTOR stations they served. It follows that they might never even see an aircraft (apart from Summer Camp - and even then perhaps not, but they were usually accommodated on a nearby airfield as being the only place which had the room for them.
RAF Thornaby was a very special case, for it had been built right on the outskirts of town; No.8 bus ran into Stockton High Street (10 mins); all the Teesside towns were generously connected by bus and trolley-bus. So we needed no "Town HQ" at all, and the old Coastal Command Operations block might have been tailor-made for us. But we were exceptions, and I presume all the video shots were of the more "normal" variety of FCU.
I was surprised to see an auxiliary squadron of Meteors , all the ones I knew ran Vampires with a single T7 for I/F training. The Meteor would be more difficult for their pilots to handle: they would need twice as many engine etc mechs for the two engines; they would burn more fuel. I presume this would be somewhere in London or the Home Counties.
1915 hrs, had another look to see, still pic there, but now says "Video not found" - what's amiss ? (anybody know ?)
Danny