Just goes to show how strong feelings were at the time. I can find great sympathy for the Northern Irish Catholics, as I know how I would feel if a military force occupied my country. Let’s not forget that King James 1 encouraged an estimated 100,000+ Scottish lowland Protestants to emigrate to Ulster in the 1600s, purely to politically outnumber and control the local Irish Catholics, the legacy of which is felt still. The NI Protestants have been every bit as bad as the Catholics, but my view is that the NI Catholics can’t achieve independance from Britain because they have been artificially outnumbered, and so are justifiably angry.
On the other hand, one can’t expect to send 1 Para into the front line like that, and just turn a blind eye to being pelted with stones and nail bombs…

A friend of mine took some images of the Shackletons at the Kinloss fire dump, probably taken in the late 1960s, when we used to often cycle to the dump to explore.
His father was an engineer on Lancasters, and was involved in the acceptance trials of the Shackleton at Kinloss in the 1950s.
Apparently his father still had the wartime ‘make do and mend’ mentality back in the 1950s, and needed some wheels to make a trailer. He and a friend clandestinely set to work on a 45 MU Spitfire, and by daylight the Spit was jacked up on oil drums Toxteth-style, with all three wheels missing! The trailer was still around in the 1980s!
I seem to remember those 45 gallon oil drums were vital to aid entry into the fuselages…


Interior shot from rear looking forward…

Great photos!
I was really surprised and delighted to see soot marks from recent ejection tests – I had no idea they were still being used for this purpose…

Obama pours so much over-the-top vitriol on BP that his cracks are beginning to show. He hates everything British – the very first thing he did when he entered the Oval Office was to throw out a bust of Churchill, and it’s been reported that the British Army tortured his grandfather during the Mau Mau rebellion….

I thought the series was a great vehicle to get round all the politically correct crap forced on us these days. I love anything with a supernatural edge, but I must admit the ending still took me by surprise – I thought it was going to be parallel dimensions or something similar.
The only thing that spoiled it for me was Montserrat Lombard playing WPC ‘Shaz’ – she seems to play the same character in everything she does. It’s a personal thing of course, but I find her voice and looks quite repellant…

Wow – now that’s style, Elliott…

No occupants?