Gaining An R.A.F Pilots Brevet In WW II
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Following a link on the "Apocryphal SWO Stories" thread, I poked about a bit and found this...
Bomber pilot's log
A tale well worth the reading...
Bomber pilot's log
A tale well worth the reading...
Join Date: Sep 2006
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Latest update:
Dear Friends,
There has not been much to report over the last month, but photos are now appearing of the first facing bricks being laid at the Biggin Hill Memorial Museum building. At the planning stage there was considerable play made that these would be 'special hand-made' bricks and presumably at a Memorial to fallen RAF airmen, they would be of UK manufacture. But no, they are an imported machine-made brick, nothing special, manufactured by the Austro-German company Weinerburger AG.
Dear Friends,
There has not been much to report over the last month, but photos are now appearing of the first facing bricks being laid at the Biggin Hill Memorial Museum building. At the planning stage there was considerable play made that these would be 'special hand-made' bricks and presumably at a Memorial to fallen RAF airmen, they would be of UK manufacture. But no, they are an imported machine-made brick, nothing special, manufactured by the Austro-German company Weinerburger AG.
Thank heavens for the redoubtable Rita, ricardian. She is a champion of everything that the Chapel of Remembrance at Biggin Hill stands for. The ignorance and philistinism that the apparatchiks display is reflected in the Yellow, Green, and Black motif of the official RAF100 brand outed in the horsecrock thread:-
You know it's horsecrock you're shovelling when you need to explain it
Somebody who doesn't care and doesn't know was given the job and these two "solutions" are the result. Thankfully many people do care. They need to raise their voices in loud protest.
You know it's horsecrock you're shovelling when you need to explain it
Somebody who doesn't care and doesn't know was given the job and these two "solutions" are the result. Thankfully many people do care. They need to raise their voices in loud protest.
Join Date: Sep 2006
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Thank heavens for the redoubtable Rita, ricardian. She is a champion of everything that the Chapel of Remembrance at Biggin Hill stands for. The ignorance and philistinism that the apparatchiks display is reflected in the Yellow, Green, and Black motif of the official RAF100 brand outed in the horsecrock thread:-
You know it's horsecrock you're shovelling when you need to explain it
Somebody who doesn't care and doesn't know was given the job and these two "solutions" are the result. Thankfully many people do care. They need to raise their voices in loud protest.
You know it's horsecrock you're shovelling when you need to explain it
Somebody who doesn't care and doesn't know was given the job and these two "solutions" are the result. Thankfully many people do care. They need to raise their voices in loud protest.
Dear All,
Two subjects to update you: trees and the bricks being used to build the 'Visitor Centre' (for that is all it is!).
Firstly trees, on the 7th April 2018 all the trees and shrubs were cut down from the front of the Chapel, many planted in remembrance of RAF personnel, including the yews and the flowering cherry (in bloom) that have appeared in photos for over 50 years. The area has been totally cleared and I urge you to click on the link below to the petition site, where the photo is now the Chapel as it appears today and the text describes the trees removed. Please also forward this link or this complete newsletter to all your acquaintances, asking them to sign the petition registering their disgust at this further atrocity. One can only wonder what damage will next be inflicted on the Chapel by the London Borough of Bromley.
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitio...of-remembrance.
In our last newsletter we told you of the bricks being used to build the so called museum, they are called 'Marziale' made by the huge Austro-German company Wienerberger AG and imported from the continent. They are not a special hand made brick as promised by the Council, but an 'off the shelf' machine-made brick that can be sourced from any builders merchant. When our newsletter filtered down to the head of a British brick manufacturer in Buckingshire he contacted the Council, its BHMM Trust and the Patron Randolph Churchill and offered his bespoke hand made wood-fired bricks for FREE, such is his regard for the RAF and Biggin Hill. His offer was REFUSED!! Not only that, he told them that had they contacted the building materials trade organisations in this country, they could have been given all the materials for free! Not only is it obvious that the London Borough of Bromley is totally lacking in empathy for the Chapel, but they have also demonstrated gross ineptitude!
Thanking you all,
Rita Radford. email: [email protected]
Two subjects to update you: trees and the bricks being used to build the 'Visitor Centre' (for that is all it is!).
Firstly trees, on the 7th April 2018 all the trees and shrubs were cut down from the front of the Chapel, many planted in remembrance of RAF personnel, including the yews and the flowering cherry (in bloom) that have appeared in photos for over 50 years. The area has been totally cleared and I urge you to click on the link below to the petition site, where the photo is now the Chapel as it appears today and the text describes the trees removed. Please also forward this link or this complete newsletter to all your acquaintances, asking them to sign the petition registering their disgust at this further atrocity. One can only wonder what damage will next be inflicted on the Chapel by the London Borough of Bromley.
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitio...of-remembrance.
In our last newsletter we told you of the bricks being used to build the so called museum, they are called 'Marziale' made by the huge Austro-German company Wienerberger AG and imported from the continent. They are not a special hand made brick as promised by the Council, but an 'off the shelf' machine-made brick that can be sourced from any builders merchant. When our newsletter filtered down to the head of a British brick manufacturer in Buckingshire he contacted the Council, its BHMM Trust and the Patron Randolph Churchill and offered his bespoke hand made wood-fired bricks for FREE, such is his regard for the RAF and Biggin Hill. His offer was REFUSED!! Not only that, he told them that had they contacted the building materials trade organisations in this country, they could have been given all the materials for free! Not only is it obvious that the London Borough of Bromley is totally lacking in empathy for the Chapel, but they have also demonstrated gross ineptitude!
Thanking you all,
Rita Radford. email: [email protected]
Hear, hear. Received my copy yesterday - just finished it. An excellent read - well edited as well!!
now I've got to go back and research the bits where I said " that's interesting - I wonder why ..."
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Bravo Zulu
Happy recipient of the Danny42C/Geriaviator PDF file ... and delighted to find I can read it on both iMac and iPad 
Wonderful to have Danny's epic all collated and readable in one slice. I'm nearly half-way through already, and finding bits I had clearly missed previously (or forgotten!).
Thanks to you both!
Wonderful to have Danny's epic all collated and readable in one slice. I'm nearly half-way through already, and finding bits I had clearly missed previously (or forgotten!).
Thanks to you both!
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I am reading this wonderful publication with the great care and attention it so richly deserves, so I am only on page 38 which recalls a twenty year Danny wearing his forage cap and Ray Bans as he mastered the controls of the Vultee BT-13 and enjoyed the attentions of the Southern belles in Alabama shortly after the USA had become a combatant at the end of 1941.
Rita rises to the occasion yet again, while the apparatchiks dig themselves an even deeper hole (and would continue doing so if it weren't for the small matter of money):-
Dear Friends,
The London Borough of Bromley and its BHMM Trust first demolished the Vestry, part of the Grade Two listed Chapel, at a cost of £25k, then started to build the horrible 'Visitors Centre' with wholly inappropiate bricks, and now have cut down all the trees and shrubs that had created such an atmosphere of tranquillity at the Chapel over the years since the war.
IT NOW TRANSPIRES THAT THEY DON'T HAVE ENOUGH FUNDING TO COMPLETE THE BUILDING!
The Learning Centre, a large part of the rear of the building, and stipulated by the Council's own consultants as 'critical' to the project, is now on hold and a public appeal has been made for £250K, although in Council and BHMM documentation, the underfunding is £600K to £650K! However the project was 'bulldozed' ahead, despite the Council knowing as early as July last year that their funding application to the Clore Duffield Foundation, who finance educational projects, had been unsuccessful (source: LBB Report No: DRR17/032). Unless in the next few months a huge amount of money suddenly magically appears, the rear of the building will not be completed for the planned opening in the Autumn. This is all happening despite the Council claiming to have already achieved funding of £5.3m, so with the costs already accrued within the Council, the cost of this 'divisive' inadequate scheme must be in excess of a whopping £6m!
Surely for a Council to start a project of this nature, knowing full funding was not in hand, could be considered extremely dubious?
I am doing everything I can to publicise these facts, so if you think of any way to raise the profile, please do so because it will have more impact than only coming from me.
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitio...of-remembrance
Thanking you all for your continued support, and please keep spreading the word.
Rita Radford email: [email protected]
The London Borough of Bromley and its BHMM Trust first demolished the Vestry, part of the Grade Two listed Chapel, at a cost of £25k, then started to build the horrible 'Visitors Centre' with wholly inappropiate bricks, and now have cut down all the trees and shrubs that had created such an atmosphere of tranquillity at the Chapel over the years since the war.
IT NOW TRANSPIRES THAT THEY DON'T HAVE ENOUGH FUNDING TO COMPLETE THE BUILDING!
The Learning Centre, a large part of the rear of the building, and stipulated by the Council's own consultants as 'critical' to the project, is now on hold and a public appeal has been made for £250K, although in Council and BHMM documentation, the underfunding is £600K to £650K! However the project was 'bulldozed' ahead, despite the Council knowing as early as July last year that their funding application to the Clore Duffield Foundation, who finance educational projects, had been unsuccessful (source: LBB Report No: DRR17/032). Unless in the next few months a huge amount of money suddenly magically appears, the rear of the building will not be completed for the planned opening in the Autumn. This is all happening despite the Council claiming to have already achieved funding of £5.3m, so with the costs already accrued within the Council, the cost of this 'divisive' inadequate scheme must be in excess of a whopping £6m!
Surely for a Council to start a project of this nature, knowing full funding was not in hand, could be considered extremely dubious?
I am doing everything I can to publicise these facts, so if you think of any way to raise the profile, please do so because it will have more impact than only coming from me.
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitio...of-remembrance
Thanking you all for your continued support, and please keep spreading the word.
Rita Radford email: [email protected]
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Another crock of s*** by the council, then. Well done, Rita!
However, we do have a separate Thread for this topic, and however significant it is perhaps it should be kept there.
However, we do have a separate Thread for this topic, and however significant it is perhaps it should be kept there.
Last edited by MPN11; 26th Apr 2018 at 18:15.
MPN11, there is not one but two threads dedicated to the desecration of St Georges Chapel by Bromley Council, as a quick search of PPRuNe will reveal. I also posted the same quote from Rita Radford on one of them. However, if this thread is about anything it is about the vital role played by the Royal Air Force in WWII, in particular by the some million who manned it both British and Commonwealth, and the recognition by later generations that our very freedoms depended on their sacrifice and duty done. St Georges was dedicated to the Remembrance of that sacrifice in a vital battle that had it been lost, then all other such battles would not have been fought let alone won. I therefore respectfully submit that it is appropriate to this thread and of special interest to those who post and/or read it. There are now less than 2,500 signatures needed before the target of 25,000 is achieved. If anyone has yet to sign may I strongly urge them to do so (the link is in Rita's quote in my post #11976 above).
Last edited by Chugalug2; 28th Apr 2018 at 11:43. Reason: names, dear boy, names
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Noted, Chugalug2 ... I will refrain from further comment.
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Is any reader of any website ever pleased by a software change, no matter how clever, stylish or sophisticated? Of course I am writing because my private navigaton method has been destroyed by this recent alteration. I have set a cascading style sheet that changes to magenta the colour of any link that I have visited. So I had a nice row of magenta page numbers at the head and foot from which I could see at a glance whether I was in a previously visited page or not. Now I am lost! One of my pprune tabs has also managed to close so that I now do not know which page I was last reading as I work through this best of all threads! Can someone please PM me to tell me on what page Danny42C reached the end of his main saga? I had just passed that point. Was it in the 380's? Thanks in advance, BernieC