Tony

To answer Pete Truman’s earlier question; it was 4 April 1968.

Blimey, that was my ex-wife’s 16th birthday, thats why he did it then, he was trying to find the party.

Can anyone out there advise me where I can find details of Air/Sea rescue launches operated by the RAF in WW11.
I am particularly interested in HSL 156 details? (made by British Power Boats)

Many thanks
dakota

I’m quite interested in old boats, I’ve stated before that the lack of preserved British warships in this country is lamentable, we even had the chance of preserving the Achilles a few years ago and the offer was turned down, warships don’t get much more famous than that one do they.

Around the creeks on my local Essex and Suffolk coasts there used to be many moored up MTB’s and Air Sea Rescue vessels in use as houseboats, even one of my sons junior school teachers used to live on one.
Over the years many have dissapeared, I recall one being moored up next to the bridge at Maldon, thats gone.
If you Google RAF air sea rescue launches, you’ll find a picture of one moored up as a houseboat at Woodbridge in Suffolk, there’s only a photograph of it and no information, judging by the shape of the hull, it could well be an HSL, in considerably better condition too.
There also appears to be another at Leigh on Sea, near Southend, again, pictures, but not much information, this one appears to be still fitted with it’s original engines.
I suspect that quite a few of these craft probably survive in whatever condition, I’m always on the look out for them, a good place to investigate old craft is at Pin Mill near Ipswich, there are some wierd and wonderful vessels there including a fantastic admirals launch, thats number one on my purchase when I win the lottery.
I recall going on holiday to Weymouth when I was a kid in the early 60’s and the local Sea Scouts had a fantastic motor launch, from memory, I suspect it was an air sea rescue launch rather than an MTB, I went on board for a guided tour and I can’t believe that it’s been allowed to rot, however it wasn’t in Weymouth the last time I went 3 years ago.
It inspired me to get my old man to buy me the Tri-ang RAF rescue launch, clockwork I know, but my clever brother fitted it with an electric motor, unfortunately I converted it into an E-Boat, I reckon its still in my mothers loft.
On this note, I was quite surprised to discover, during my research, that the last surviving German E-boat is preserved in Plymouth, on the water too, not only that, but it took part in the Slapton Sands attack, a truly historic vessel.

As you live in Eastern England, perhaps some of these places are familiar to you and worth investigating, there’s a particular creek near St Osyth that looks interesting.
With new technology, I find it fascinating to trawl the creeks on Google Earth and look out the shape of hulls on there, it’s quite an interesting exercise.
I hope that this information has been some use to you.
Pete.

Last week, my neighbours somewhat neglected pond was full of frogs and toads, the noise coming from it put McCartneys frog chorus to shame.
My stepson has been carefully retrieving any frog or toad that he’s found in the road on his ‘adventures’ and we ended up with a small toad in our pond.
The racket that this thing made was incredible, so the mob next door seem to have come under the fence to join him, well our pond is deeper, cleaner and full of plants.
It is now a seething mass of frogs and toads, the amount of frogspawn has started to displace the water, as I write they are all croaking away, and it tends to go on all night. Our dogs think it’s wierd and sit there staring at them.
I don’t know what Mr Pike thinks of all this, I presume he knows he’s in for a good feast, I’m surprised he hasn’t had a go at the frogs yet, maybe he has, theres so many that one missing wouldn’t be noticed.
I don’t know what the growth rate in frogs is over a year, but I doubt that any of these are the original offspring from our last years tadpoles, I also gather that the survival rate amongst tadpoles is incredibly low, ie if you have a typical pond full of frogspawn, only about 10 frogs will hop off into the wild, and what will their survival rate be.

I have learned today that Siskin numbers are up in my area, North Scotland.

Also the 11 Cranes are still around the old airfield of Milltown near Lossiemouth, I believe these have also travelled from Scandanavia, they havebeen feeding in the area for the last 4 weeks.

Last year there were Cranes breeding at the Lakenheath reserve, this only opened last May, for anyone in this area I can highly recommend it, if only for the fact that I believe Moggy has visited it.
It also is one of the few breeding sites in the UK for Golden Orioles, I’ve only ever seen them in Hungary and they really are stunning birds.
It must be the only reserve where you can see rare species, do a bit of train spotting and have to put your fingers in your ears when the F-15’s come over in full reheat, I’m looking forward to a day out there when all the migrants arrive, I reckon early May could be a good time for a good all round day out, and it’s free, well, donation only, the visitor centre and bogs are very tasteful and the warden is a right keen type, in a very pleasant sort of way.
I wonder if the very large local American population have discovered it yet.

Incidentally, our very large influx of Siskins is getting a bit out of hand, they seem to have taken over the feeders entirely, our locals aren’t getting a look in, very strange situation.

Still havn’t seen any siskins though i tell you what would be sure to work if you want your area protected, its i bit underhand and illegal but here it is, go on a search of ponds, find some great crested newts, bring newts back to area you want to see protected and voila your newly created newt filled area will be protected. I won’t go into more detail for obvious reasons but i KNOW this works.

Interestingly enough, when we were stocking up our pond last year, my keen type youth did a bit of dipping in his Grans local pond and we stuck a load of newts down the bottom of the garden, he insists that one of them was a Great Crested, blimey protected newts and sloworms, they’ll have to fence the area off, serve them right.
Incidentally, no response to my letter of complaint from the Local Council, they’re probably on leave, but our local Braintree and Bocking preservation society are well interested at whats going on.

Considering the thousands of people that were either crossing the bridge at the time, walking along the embankment or crossing the other London bridges, which he must have crossed at low level, considering he wanted to wake up the members in the House of Commons, does anyone know someone who witnessed it and could state their reactions at the time.
Did any tourist, and I used to regularly wander about London at the time with my old Dixons 35mm, take any photos of the event.
What was the exact date, I have a good memory of events but don’t recall it at all as being particularly newsworthy at the time, though we were too tied up in teenage ‘Swinging London’ to care about aviation, my greatest memory is going to the Harlequin record shop near Piccadily Circus, probably about the same time, and bumping into Jimi Hendrix on his way out, I doubt whether I would have swapped that ‘experience’ at the time for witnessing a Hunter flying under Tower Bridge.

The other night, our hedonistic son persuaded us to watch ‘School of Rock’, as it had a rating of 4 stars in the Radio Times, we went along with it.
Our comments, well unusually for kids taking part in such a film as this, they were really good, and were really being themselves, however, who thought it was worth 4 stars must have been living on another planet, who works these things out, it really was quite pathetic and predictable, and the ending made us want to puke, the only redeeming factor was trying to work out who was responsible for the soundtrack music, some of which was listed at the end of the film, but we couldn’t recall hearing some of the stuff that was listed.
However, the night after, we watched ‘Sleepers’, not rated as highly, but quite frankly, a diferent class, we really enjoyed it and once again, it raised the question, who gives these films ratings to the powers that be.

With the RAF’s 90th birthday looming I was just recalling my old friend “Al” Pollock’s little adventure to mark the 50th, when he took off from Tangmere in a 1 Squadron Hunter (XF442) en route for West Raynham and famously (or infamously!) took her under the top span of Tower Bridge. The story is well known, of course, but what happened to XF442? I recall seeing her at Chivenor or Brawdy later on with a dayglo outline of Tower Bridge under her cockpit rail.

If the RAF are not going to properly mark the 90th, then maybe someone will mark the 40th of “Al’s” little adventure with a Tornado or something??!! 😎

Would a Typhoon fit under Ray Hannas ‘Piece of Cake’ bridge, or perhaps try it with a Harrier, room for a bit of careful manoveouring there, bearing in mind the amount of tree growth as reported on the last thread on the subject.
How about the Red Arrows flying under the Queen Elizabeth bridge on the M25, it gives me vertigo everytime I drive over it, now that would be a sight, plenty of room for sorting themselves out too.
I don’t think that Health and Safety or the powers that be would appreciate any of this, unless there is a dissoloutioned pilot somewhere. Can we expect a low level inverted pass down the runway at Lakenheath afterwards as well.