B-25 before its trip to Booker?

Thanks Roobarb. I had an idea the turret went for we’ll meet again but I wasn’t 100% sure. I have a complete set of HAM newsletters from the first to the newsletter announcing the meeting in Southend to disband the original society and set up a new one around 1982 following the demise of the museum.
having been a founder and life member of the society I had every intention of going to the final meeting but someone stole my motorcycle from outside the place where I worked in Ilford to use it in a jewellers raid so the meeting was over by the time I had spent time with the police and got home to Southend by train.

Somewhere, from many years ago I have one of the museum magazines from the HAM at Aviation Way. In it there is a news item which mentions the removal of the leg for this ferry flight. From memory it was the flight to Shoreham (surely its last?). It’s in a box somewhere in the house, but I’ll try to check it out. It also had an in depth article on the ATEL Prentice fiasco and a list of then surviving aircraft including the one in the childrens playground next to the railway on the way from Southend to London. It was replaced by a tractor at some point. Probably a faster method of transport 😀

Bill Gent (?) told me the turret was loaned for the “We’ll meet again” TV series as it was actually a B17 turret and he said they never retuned it.

I forgot that 7614C spent time at Shoreham. Was that before or after Luton? My memory is getting a bit hazy at times after all these years. I am pretty sure that both 9089Z and 7614C were operated by and abandoned by Jeff Hawke who seemed to almost make a habit of acquiring Mitchells and leaving them behind when he moved on.

As mention has been made of N7614C, the following – which I’m sure I must have posted before – may be of interest. It was taken at Shoreham in 1975. One of these days I must make a better, higher resolution copy from the original print. But that’s nothing to write home about, having been taken on my first 35mm camera – a nondescript German viewfinder camera given to me by my father after a tourist had left it in one of his hire cars!

Great pictures that brought back some memories. Hope you don’t mind if I add a couple more.
Firstly a slightly out of focus shot from Biggin Hill which must have been taken about 1966/7. No idea who took the photo but I have owned the print for over 40 years having bought it from our aircraft spotters club at school.

and one from Southend in about 1982 – not too long before the museum closed. The top turret was hired or loaned for a TV or film production and was never returned. Apparently when the museum made enquiries in an attempt to recover it no one had any recollection of what happened to it.
9089Z has also acquired a proper nose for this picture. When N7614C (now at Duxford) was in the UK to film a BOAC Boeing 747 promotional film it suffered from a problem with the nosewheel leg and the owners managed to borrow 9089Z’s noseleg for a while to complete the filming leaving 9089Z propped up on oil drums for a while. I think the new nose was sent as payment for the use of the noseleg.
After the BOAC filming was completed N7614C was effectively abandoned at Luton and was eventually passed on to Duxford for preservation.

9089Z was repainted a second time as HD368 before the Southend museum opened. During the repaint a fair bit of the underwing skin was replaced after removal of masses of birds nests and much of the airframe was stripped to bare metal (again) – a long and laborious task with comparatively few people using Ardrox and decorating paint scrapers and wire brushes.

I can remember her at North Weald in the 90’s complete and sharing the airfield with B25 Dolly.

Nice shots, thanks for posting.