I’ve had 2 attempts at subscribing to Flypast and each time ended in lost and late deliveries and the pain of subsequent phone calls of complaint, though to be fair, they dealt with things very quickly and efficiently. It has generally been easier to buy the mag at my local W H Smiths.
Subscribing means you have the right of access to the Flypast enclosure at selected airshows, pity you can’t do that when you have purchased every single copy since the magazines birth, now that’s a few hundred quids worth.
One good thing, they’ve started selling the mag at our local Tescos, looks a bit wierd amongst the OK type magazines, wonder how long that will last.

Mr Angry, looks like we were at the same places at the same time, I was the old long haired git wearing an A2 and standing behind the tail of the Bloodhound getting annoyed with the official photographers, though they at least gave it reasonable coverage on BBC Look East news.
I parked at the bottom end of Madingley car park and have identical photographs with the sun in the same position.
Did you notice that the few crosses that had wreaths and flowers on them had the letters picked out in gold, most unusual, but touching.
As I mentioned on ‘Historic’, many of the incumbents were sadly killed just after the war finished, but 2 of the graves date from 1990, one of whom was an exchange pilot with the RAF, anyone know the story.

Looking at the pictures again, I think that on your shot along the wall of names, that was me on the right of the group of three people, I was showing them the names of Joe Kennedy and Glen Miller, what a coincidence!!!

Following my comments about the Braintree public, I went into town on Saturday morning and in the shopping precinct the British Legion had a display consisting of a beautifully restored WW2 army truck, a re-enactor with lots of uniforms for the kids to try on and some interesting old boys.
During my conversations with them, they told me that the main Rememberance day event was at Black Notley and not at the town war memorial, which is in a park just up the road from me, only the HMS Kite people would be there, followed by a main service there at 14:15 in the afternoon.
HMS Kite??????
After some research, HMS Kite was a Black Swan class corvette, adopted by the town of Braintree in 1943, sunk by U-344 on the way to Murmansk in 43 with the loss of 217 lives, only 9 survivors, U-344 was sunk the next day with the loss of all hands by a Swordfish.
I went up to the park that afternoon, it was empty, but very atmospheric.
I found the memorial to the Kite, erected by the local council in 2004 and surrounded by pictures and momentoes of the crew, the actual war memorial itself only listed people killed in WW1, what happened to WW2?
So, yesterday morning, I decided to go to Duxford, a poignant place for me as the D-Day 60th anniversary was the last event I took my old man to before he died.
I polished up his RA cap badge and clipped it to my jumper, I did wonder yesterday whether out of all the thousands of artifacts on site at the museum, that this small badge could have been one of the few objects that actually came ashore under fire at Arromanches, possibly with the Grace spitfire flying overhead.
I went straight to the LWF, the old boy always reckoned that the dispatch rider scenario was him, apart from the RA flashes and the twin Colts of course.
At 11:00 I stood outside, it was very wierd to see everyone, and it was busy, including the whining kids, stop silently in their tracks, very moving.
The service was great, made more memorable by the presence of the East Anglian 3rd Battalion TA for the award of their service medals, looked very prominent in their desert combats.
Pity no-one had seen fit to clean up the Bloodhound a little bit, as the backdrop to the ceremony, it looked awful, nice to see the 2 spits pulled out for the occasion, ok, one was GRP but it looked the part.
What surprised me was the number of USAF pilots from Mildenhall/Lakenheath, they outnumbered everyone else, looking self conscious in their dress uniforms, but every other one looking like they’d stepped out of the cast of ‘The Right Stuff’, nice to see them there though, particularly the one’s that had brought their wives and kids, I had to show one suffering pilot with 4 kids how to find the toilets, sorry , washroom, in the AAM.
But the day didn’t finish there, I decided to go up to Madingley, wow, been so many times but it still has a special feel about it.
I parked at the bottom car park and walked through the graves, I was struck at how many had been killed after the war had officially finished.
I then teamed up with an elderly couple and found them the names of Joe Kennedy and Glenn Miller, ‘So many names and so many young men killed’, was all she said, quite right to, yet it sadly goes on.
On returning we had a rememberance day TV feast, starting off with ‘The Last Tommies’ on UK History, seen before, then Jeremy Paxman on Wilfred Owen, brilliant programme we thought, handled very well by JP.
The dissapointment was ‘My son Jack’ about Rudyard Kipling on ITV. Why, well, the bloody adverts of course, it was excruciating. I know they pay for the production, but to watch a terrible scene with the troops going over the top then hurriedly cut to adverts for celebrity Xmas goodies and Nintendo was all wrong, they were on every 10 minutes, for such a sensitive programme on such a day, the pillocks in control should have considered what they were doing, it was all wrong in our eyes and totally ruined the point of the programme, every time it got heavy we were confronted by a grinning Lulu and artificial snow, it’s only the begining of November for Gods sake, 2 fingers to ITV and the reason why we rarely watch the channel.
That was my day, for what it was worth.

During my past trips round the by-pass to visit the late lamented Coltishall, I’ve noticed what appears to be an underground bunker next to and to the west of the road in this area. I’ve tried Google Earth, but everything is obscured by trees at this point. I doubt whether such constructions were even thought of during the life of the airfield, but could it be related to something that was there initially. Any comments from our Norfolk contingent.
Incidentally, I’ve been glued to the news this morning watching the effects of the tidal surge, national news seem to have missed the point, it’s the Broadlands that seem to be getting it, hope Carrow Road is ok, don’t want to add to their woes do we.

I’ve been out of it for the past few weeks with quite a serious illness, which still hasn’t been resolved, just reading things on here has kept me going somewhat, it’s been my little thing, but I saw Kevs thread the other day and was quite moved by it. Interestingly enough, like Moggy, I had no knowledge of this place and felt ashamed, but then, it’s opening and existance has recieved little media attention either, probably due to the coverage given to the current and potential conflicts that this place represents.
I also discovered the programme at the last minute on BBC1 yesterday evening and everything became clear, a poignant and moving programme on such a subject for once, made very surreal by the constant explosion from the local firework displays.
Fantastic photos and description Kev, thanks for making me aware, I hope to be able to get there one day.

For many months I’ve heard of parrots living successfully in West London Parks.How they got there God only knows.The bigger question is,how come two Green Parakeets are sitting in a 40ft tree opposite my balcony here in South East London? Are they that well established that they have to find new feeding grounds? Not that I’m complaining,it just took me aback. Really looking forward to seeing them again as they fended off an attack by a magpie,so I reckon this is their area now.
The beeb has reported on London Parrots See Here.

Do you have an airgun.
Sounds grim but lets not forget other disastrous imports, I’m thinking grey squirells and those bloody American Crayfish, we have a disaster unfolding on the River Waveney at the moment due to the virus the unnatural Crayfish carry that kills our native species.
Hopefully a few peregrines will do the trick and wipe out the paraqueets.
Sorry, but the consequences of these things establishing themselves over here could be a real problem and they should be removed before it really gets out of hand, but will anything be done, probably not, they are pretty birdies after all, and we will all suffer for it in the future, it seems that past mistakes in introducing alien species are not to be quickly remedied.

Them aeroplanes J-Peas?

Nah, Red Marrows…………….., well someone had to say it.