Originally Posted by
chevvron
I vaguely recall that Lydd was developed on the site of a former wartime ALG specifically as the 'closest' airfield to France for car freight operations eg Silver City.
It was very busy in 1959 when I attended school camp at an old Army camp at nearby St Marys Bay, with a flight seeming to depart about every 15 minutes.
That was indeed it's finest hour, the car shuttle to Le Touquet with Bristol Freighters and two (later three after a nose extension) cars. Although there was a formal timetable showing every 30 minutes or so, in practice aircraft were loaded and departed as required and as people turned up. Must have been an interesting one for crewing and ops. Raymond Baxter (longstanding BBC aviation and motoring correspondent, and ex-WW2 Spitfire pilot) spoke several times about how he would put the family into his Austin-Healey 3000 on a whim on a Saturday morning, drive down to Lydd, and hop over to France for the weekend.