Regarding items for sale in shops. You do need to cater for all tastes and age groups,
not just for children or for people with £20 or more to spend on a book or set of DVDs

I also believe that there is a need for items that are unique to that particular
location. For instance, if a museum works on restoring old aircraft, there
must be a lot of scrap metal, which would otherwise go for recycling.

If some of the small pieces (2″ square) were polished up engraved with
the aircraft details, and mounted on a block of wood, I reckon they would
fly off the shelves at around £5 a time. Charge much more and they would
gather dust.

A few years ago at Southend airport, during the airshow, RAF ground crew
were selling small fan blades from the Harrier, at a couple of pounds each.
They were going like hot cakes. Because they were something different,
rather than an inflatable Arrows Hawk, or plastic kit.

I’ll have to show this to my dad. Both of my parents are now 90yrs old, and
live in Watton. Although only since 1984.

Interesting story.

I might wake up and decide to spend the day at a museum, FAAM and RAFM Cosford of equidistant to me, but Cosford is free and that is where I visit more often.

Have the FAAM always charged entry ? We went there about eight years ago, and I don’t recall having to pay.

Then again, my memory isn’t that good 🙂

On the subject of museums, why does IWM Duxford charge an entry fee when all the other IWM museums don’t ? this is not a whinge I’m just curious.

I enquired about this several years ago. The reply I had was something along
the lines of : “We have to charge, as there are private companies based here”

I don’t quite see what difference that makes. :confused:

I would visit more often, if it weren’t going to cost in the region of £30 every time, for the two of us.

I also found part II a big improvement on the first episode. With the cadets
being made acutely aware of what could be expected of them, once
deployed.

I found the scenes of the bayonet training (as echoed on the last “Young
Soldiers” programme) rather OTT.

One of the things I’ve inherited from my father, is an acute dislike of being
told that servicemen “Lay down their lives”, or “Make the ultimate
sacrifice”. Which came up a number of times in the documentary.

He used to get very angry when that was said during the Cenotaph parade.

No they didn’t !! he would say. They were killed ! …. Not so PC, and maybe
not what families want to hear, but closer to the truth.

Just out of interest, what would the average cost be of insuring something like
a Cessna 152

I have no doubt that the “elite” will shine through, but there still seem to be
a lot of cadets who who seem to be “fish out of water”, and are wasting
everyone’s time. I realise that’s what the course is all about, sorting the wheat
from the chaff, but many of them seem to be clueless as to what
the army expects of them.

There’s another series running, “Young Soldiers”, where at least a couple of
recruits have dropped out when the reality of having to go to Afghanistan
has been explained to them.

Don’t they ever watch the news ?

Which is why there seems such a gulf between this series and the previous one made many years ago.

They didn’t have the “comfort blanket” of the mobile phone back then. 😉