Thinking further about Boulton & Paul’s naming policy for their medium bombers, they stuck to the party line with Bourges (French town), Bolton, Bodmin, Sidestrand and Overstrand, but before the Sidestrand there was the Bugle (7 prototypes). How did that name get in there ?

It has been recorded that the name Sidestrand was used because the Director of Technical Development at the Air Ministry came from there. Boulton & Paul did then get their first production contract for medium bombers, but no doubt this was entirely co-incidental. The Overstrand was logically named after a nearby village, but a further development of the design, with retractable undercarriage etc, would have been called the Superstrand, which rather destroys the logic of the sequence. I am reminded of the time that VW started naming their cars after tropical winds (Scirrocco, Passat, and then Golf -which is the German for Gulf) They didn’t think they could sell a car in America named after the game, so they changed the name to Rabbit in the US. Then they decided a game wasn’t such a bad idea after all, and named the next car Polo.

If the nosewheel is inside, and it sounds like it is, it is possible to build a trolley to support the rear of the cockpit, with the nosewheel leg down, as we did with out two seat Hunter at Boulton Paul (now at Flixton). It looks much better and is easy to move around.

I tried desperately to get the Overstrand nose to Cockpitfest over the years/ As it’s mounted on a road=going trailer is there any chance that NASAM will take it there ?