There’s always MK329, which he only flew twice, and which carried no armament (“Spitfire Ace of Aces,” by Dilip Sarkar.) He said that it was made up from parts of salvaged aircraft, and there’s an apparent mismatch in the lower line of the camouflage pattern, at the transport joint, which looks like a possible replacement back end.
He seems (in the same book) to have flown a clipped-wing IX or XVI, post-war, which appears to have his personal codes; it’s mis-captioned as being during his time at Lashenden, but aircraft, in the background, are sporting post-war roundels.

I had to call the AA out, a few months ago, and the driver said that his main stock of spares consists of small batteries. “You’d be surprised how many drivers keep the spare battery, for their locking/unlocking device, in the glove compartment, and lock themselves out due to a flat battery,” he said.

Good job Mummy was PM or he would’ve been bones in the desert now.

Along with his co-driver and mechanic, but, of course, they don’t matter, in your vindictive desire to see his mother suffer. Naturally, being a vicious, uncaring politician, she was not allowed to have any concerns for the life of one of her children.

What goes around, comes around. Look back about 2000 years, and the only difference is in the degree of cruelty, and the way it is/was administered. The Romans set wild animals on defenceless humans; today we have the press, “reality” TV, plus sundry sadists, taking cruelty to a different, more subtle, level.
Not long ago, I would have challenged those bleating about censorship to look in the drawn faces of her children, then play a record which is being used to celebrate their mother’s death. Thirty years ago, I don’t believe that they could, but now?
The (now deceased) mother of a friend once said that, like Roman society, Western society is heading for disintegration; I now realise that a woman, whom I tended to treat with amusement, was a damn sight wiser than me (and a lot of today’s smartAlecs, too.)

why should the queen be going?.

Probably because she wants to.

I can understand perfectly why Churchill had one but remember that Attlee didn’t, and look what his government did for the country

Banned supersonic research, giving our technology to the U.S.; forcibly sent Russians, Poles and Czechs back to their countries and imprisonment or death; gave jet engines to Stalin, enabling the MiG-15 to be the aerodynamic equal of the Sabre.

And by ‘the beginning’ you mean somewhere in the middle; at a point that there are enough tiny fragments of bone and pottery to make an educated guess about what was happening back then…..well, probably?

Please don’t be condescending, and, no, that isn’t what I meant. Start at the very beginning, when this island was swept from a completely different place, on this planet, dumped near Europe (with all the trouble that’s brought,) then take them through the various ages, even, if possible taking them to the south coast, to hunt for fossils and (if they strike really lucky, as a child did recently) dinosaur bones. For some reason, children are fascinated by the dinosaurs, and, get them interested in some (any) form of history, and you’ve got a better chance of holding their interest as you advance towards modern times.

I think it is a shame the Queen is attending.She “should” be above and separate from politics.

Bit difficult when, after an election, it’s she who invites the leader of the largest party to form the next government, officiates at the opening of each Parliament, has a weekly meeting with him/her to discuss affairs of state, and is head of the armed forces, which the P.M. borrows, occasionally, to get this country out of the mire.
With all of this talk of the expense, I note that nobody has mentioned that her children are contributing; no amount has been mentioned, but I wouldn’t mind betting it’ll be more than 31p each.

If you want children to know how this nation evolved, where else can you start, but at the beginning?