RE: Hawkinge
Hawkinge is in my mind, worthy of saving at least some of the remaining parts. Sure some looks dilapidated but some of it could be absorbed into the excellent Kent Battle of Britain Museum (blast pen, hangar base, fuel depot).
Regarding there not being much worth saving, well it makes me laugh. If it was a Spitfire (or a Rembrant) that was being put in a furnace and only half was left a queue of people would say whoa! Stop doing that! Far fetched analogy maybe? But, I think that some of it should join the museum and the some of the rest should be made into a green playing area perhaps.
I found it horrendous how much the housing had encroached the museum. Some house buyer will throw open his/her curtains and see the museum 1 ft from his/her fence. If the developers have their way, the museum will be totally surrounded by houses. It makes me sad that we (collective) allowed the airfield to be built on.
The problem is that developers start little, say build 200 houses, then more go up and then even more. By this way they completely cover our historic airfields. Hawkinge was the closest airfield to France and the enemy. It was a Battle Ground and deserves to be listed as such as much as Naseby and all the greal Civil War battlefields. Call me an idiot or soft, I don’t care!
Sure we cannot save everything, but it is the usual ‘we needn’t bother cos there are…..other airfields still around’ (quotes a rapidly shrinking list.
What the Luftwaffe failed to do in 1940, the developers are doing now!
One chap said that airfields exude history….it is true….it is almost like they are tape recorders that playback to those ‘tuned in’. When I was a student in the mid 80s I would go to Hornchurch and walk around the blast pens and former airfield. I could close my eyes and feel the aircraft and pilots around me. I went into the old officers or sgts mess, the big old fire place they used to warm their backs against was said to still smell of hot leather (from the Irvin jackets) on some nights. A lady working from a mobile home, selling houses on the airfield said how she ‘saw things’ that most do not believe in…..If there are ghosts they would be at airfields.
Just one last point, they have built housing estates all round the airfield at Boscombe Down (it seems ridiculous but true as we are an active airfield!) They then fill these houses with idiots who spend their whole life moaning about aviation that is committed over their fences. Some roads are named….’Nicolson Close’ ‘Barnes Wallis Close’, ‘Tempest Way’ and ‘Lightning Way’ etc. unfortunately the majority of house occupants don’t have a clue as to who/what these people/planes were. The latest estate is named Beamont after the great man himself. I wrote to him about 2 years before his deatha nd asked him what he thought. He said that he had rang them to complain and they said ‘Oh, awfully sorry but we thought you were dead!’.
Anyway, thanx for the discussion….sorry my post rambled on but I feel strongly about this part of our history
Regards
Tony
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