Billy Boggins said this in another thread….
“Stuff of legend…..
Why the hell would he make it up? What did he have to gain?”
Which reminded me of of a strange episode in my life when a chap in Cleethorpes got in touch regarding a Spitfire XII that he was restoring. Initially he had been boasting to a friend of mine about the project and she told me as she knew I was an enthusiast.
I tracked the serial as being one which was downed in the English Channel. It was a 41 Sqn one. I offered to help him with my contacts which were few but of high quality. Over six months the story from him was sparse in facts but knowing how rare this mark was I kept exchanging letters(no email then) No photos ever turned up which was odd. He said he would fly it as a tribute .
The engine was on rebuild and he sent me the info on the company including receipts. But my contact at the Fighter Collection had never heard of them.The paperwork from the company was written on the same typewriter as his usual letters. So he had forged them!
After that I was cheesed off and wrote to tell him that he was just making it all up. I got back an angry letter saying he would take legal action if I messed with his project !
That was over twenty years ago and nothing has ever a surfaced from a shed in Cleethorpes !
By: WJ244 - 25th March 2009 at 17:37
We had a similar sort of experience at Southend around 1971/2 when I was a volunteer. A typical ex military looking man with the mandatory moustache and upper class accent turned up one day claiming he had found some aircraft in a barn. They were all WW2 types and I think they included a Lysander. He returned over several weeks to regale everyone with stories of how the farmer got them after the war and they were all in good condition. I was a teenager at the time and with the naivety of youth believed it all and after several visits others were less sceptical.
Eventually he turned up claiming he had secured a deal with the farmer for us to collect the aircraft (I don’t know if any money was involved) and he later confirmed a date for the recovery so we assembled all the equipment to go get em and he never showed and proved to be untraceable.
The only motivation would appear to be to walk away with the museums money but he never asked for money up front and I don’t remember money being discussed at all. Very strange but the world is full of Walter Mitty characters.
By: scotavia - 25th March 2009 at 09:24
Cant recall the serial offhand , but I do recall that he had no idea I was involved in research, he just thought I liked planes ! So he must have copied a serial off a pic of a MKXII and when I checked it was one that went in the sea.So no chance of that being a secret survivor hidden in a shed.
By: Dan Johnson - 24th March 2009 at 23:34
So what 41 squadron Spit XII was it supposed to be? I can think of a few that went into the Channel
By: trumper - 24th March 2009 at 21:47
😡 Perhaps he should’ve read about the boy who cried wolf – -may have learnt something.What a waste of resources he caused playing with his and others minds:(
By: scotavia - 24th March 2009 at 19:41
Well the chap in Cleethorpes also pulled another Walter Mitty stunt which really soured my views of him because it caused worry. He said he was flying up to Inverness solo in a Cessna 150 from an airfield in North East England. He passed us an ETA and date but he never arrived and ATC Inverness became concerned when we contacted them. Eventually the police in Cleethorpes went round to his flat and confirmed he was still there. Later he claimed that he was stricken with an extreme tummy bug and could not fly.
All very strange when fantasy crosses over in a persons mind, he did fancy himself as a writer of fiction so perhaps he was testing his stories.
By: D1566 - 24th March 2009 at 15:31
Have you tried checking the address on Google earth to see if there are any give-away clues visible??!! :confused:
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March 24, 2009 at 7:50 am