Claude Grahame-White’s factory tonight (fri 6/4)
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Claude Grahame-White’s factory tonight (fri 6/4)
Might be an interesting programme, providing you can put up with Dan Cruickshank:
Brick by Brick: Rebuilding Our Past 9pm - 10pm BBC2 (not Scotland), BBC HD
Architectural boffins Dan Cruickshank and Charlie Luxton are in Hendon, north-west London, watching the painstaking rebuilding of aviation pioneer Claude Grahame-White’s factory. He’s a legend in flying circles, a dashing man who tried to convince defence chiefs of the importance aircraft could play in the First World War.
Cruickshank and Luxton are on hand to watch as bits of the original building, including the watchtower, having been dismantled, are cleaned. The factory slowly takes shape at the RAF Museum in Hendon, thanks to a dedicated and very careful group of builders and restorers.
Brick by Brick: Rebuilding Our Past 9pm - 10pm BBC2 (not Scotland), BBC HD
Architectural boffins Dan Cruickshank and Charlie Luxton are in Hendon, north-west London, watching the painstaking rebuilding of aviation pioneer Claude Grahame-White’s factory. He’s a legend in flying circles, a dashing man who tried to convince defence chiefs of the importance aircraft could play in the First World War.
Cruickshank and Luxton are on hand to watch as bits of the original building, including the watchtower, having been dismantled, are cleaned. The factory slowly takes shape at the RAF Museum in Hendon, thanks to a dedicated and very careful group of builders and restorers.
I think we are referring to the Grahame-White hangar which was left in a dreadful state when flying stopped at Hendon in the late-1960s. Somebody slapped a Grade something or another on it and it was eventually taken in hand.
An equally interesting building at Hendon was the officers' mess, otherwise known as the Claude Grahame White Cafe. This mock Tudor building is now part of the local college. Perhaps surprisingly, for a place which from the 1960s to station closure in 1987 was the exclusive preserve of those immensely boring equipment officers (later supply) the mess was an absolutely super place with a social life to match anything - anywhere, despite being being a few miles from central London. I experienced several interviews without coffee, usually for taking my MG sports car into the main entrance hall during a guest night or playing Christopher Robin with coffee tables I had bought myself.
The station held an Upside Down Dinner in the mess to commemorate the anniversary of the first inverted flight and a similar dinner held at the RAC club. It seemed strange starting a meal with mess games and ending the evening with pre-dinner drinks.
I still have to smile everytime I drive past on my way to the museum and how many people know that the main display halls are built over a group of hangars which are themselves extremely rare.
The night some local scroats set fire to a unique bi-plane whilst the security guards slept twenty feet away, when they should have been wideawake, is perhaps best forgotten!!
Old Duffer
An equally interesting building at Hendon was the officers' mess, otherwise known as the Claude Grahame White Cafe. This mock Tudor building is now part of the local college. Perhaps surprisingly, for a place which from the 1960s to station closure in 1987 was the exclusive preserve of those immensely boring equipment officers (later supply) the mess was an absolutely super place with a social life to match anything - anywhere, despite being being a few miles from central London. I experienced several interviews without coffee, usually for taking my MG sports car into the main entrance hall during a guest night or playing Christopher Robin with coffee tables I had bought myself.
The station held an Upside Down Dinner in the mess to commemorate the anniversary of the first inverted flight and a similar dinner held at the RAC club. It seemed strange starting a meal with mess games and ending the evening with pre-dinner drinks.
I still have to smile everytime I drive past on my way to the museum and how many people know that the main display halls are built over a group of hangars which are themselves extremely rare.
The night some local scroats set fire to a unique bi-plane whilst the security guards slept twenty feet away, when they should have been wideawake, is perhaps best forgotten!!
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I finally managed to get to the museum on my last trip to the Smoke. It was sufficiently different to Cosford to justify a place for both, I thought. The GW factory was really good. Just as we were leaving, QCS were pitching up and dropping kit upstairs. There was a dais outside the main building so something was afoot.
To all that look after this fantastic legacy to our past, thank you.
S
To all that look after this fantastic legacy to our past, thank you.
S
