During the war, my mother (east end girl) was a plotter on AA guns.She was taught to speak phonetically, which I used to call her “telephone voice” as a child. Whenever she answered the phone she put on her “posh voice” Yet in her every day speech was just “mum”.
As for J Boyle, not wishing to sound tiresome,..I am trying to understand exactly what you meant in your post

Just be thankfull that its Peter Jackson making the movie or Gibson would probably be a yank!. Or an american actor playing a Canadian….Brad Pitt maybe…would get the ladies in!.

Exellent programme, I was a bit saddened by the , as seems to be de riguer these days,anti Hamburg/Dresden bias.As they mentioned early on in the show it was the Germans that invented area bombing, and I don’t think the residents of Gurnica,Warsaw,Coventry,London etc would complain. Even where I live in the leafy suburbs of London was bombed, 5 houses on the road next to me were destroyed, several homes in my street were damaged and many were killed at the local train station.Even our war memorial has shrapnel damage. Also the High St was machine gunned and I think 1 young woman killed. This was early on in the war.

If you look at my piccie of the 100 ton gun there is a submarine just to the right of the end of the barrel.

Malta is a fantastic place, an island which seems to populated by petrolheads.No matter whether 2 or 4 wheels, with wings, old or modern its all there. Classic car meets on Sundays in Qawra,bikes at Golden Bay,or classic bikes at the next bay down. Custom cars, restored oldies, drag racing on 2 and 4 wheels, RC club. The Air Museum, small military vehicle club and burgeoning re-enactment scene. Gun collecting (you can still have a working mg there). A fantastic classic car Museum. The Malta Classic GP. Good weather, great people, exellent food and reasonable prices…whats not to like!.

I was out there again a couple of weeks ago, there is some really quality work going on there. I can’t wait for the Swordfish. I had a little play with one of Mr Denneys’s pics…1940 again..

Hal Far is still echoing to the sound of big supercharged engines…

Will it be in the next book?. happy birthday!.