I should have twigged this earlier as I used to visit an elderly relative on it, but was confused by the reference to Royston Grange. I have to say that I don’t recall any memorial,  but I wouldn’t have been looking for one. 

I think we are talking Grange Road which runs parallel to the A505 on the village side of the aerodrome,  and from which the notorious “naughty field” is accessed. It pops up in this music video:

https://youtu.be/UeCcuH-EsuM?si=oaO7fXk-IceV0Evg

As for which trees it might have been, so many mature elm trees were lost to Dutch Elm Disease, or grubbed out to enlarge fields in the 1970s and 80s that the countryside might have changed dramatically since then. I know there are period aerial photos of the  airfield  but they probably don’t go far enough away to show Grange Road. I can only suggest looking at OS maps from around then to see what is marked.

Any houses on Grange Road are likely to be to the West of the aerodrome – though again,  a lot of rural housing was demolished in slum clearance in the 1950s, so there may have been cottages closer to the village.

FreeBMD has no record that I can see (travelling back from OW, and the site is not phone friendly) of a death of an Elsie Riches in 1924, so it looks as though she survived. 

Likewise, but I feel I should try!

He should have grown old and bold like Ray. Greatly missed.

His sister ran a burns charity in his memory for the best part of 20 years – that must have taken incredible fortitude, being reminded every day of what had happened.

I wonder whether Peter was the reason I joined the Flypast forum back in the last century, as I found a met man in Newfoundland in my family, and *someone* put me onto a historian who helped me try to track him down (he eventually turned up in Arizona, hard to get further away from Newcoundland!).

Whatever the reason, I’m sorry to hear of his death. Somehow “Blue skies” doesn’t seem a fitting valediction for a met man.

Blue nosed P51 and, earlier, what I think was a Swordfish judging by its bulk and lack of speed in the far distance heading West over Oxford.