Hi Pete

I’m pretty sure it was that area east of Robertsbridge. It was about 45 years ago that I worked there. The name Park Farm springs vaguely to mind but there’s only a Park Farm east of Salehurst. I’ve tried to identify the farm from Google Earth but no doubt all the farm buildings are now bijou residences!

The only firm clue I have is that Malcom Muggeridge lived at the same place in the late 60’s. But despite a bit of research I can’t find his address either.

cheers
Dave

Do me a teeny favour Posart and correct that horrendous typo in line 1. He wasn’t Roy Nebsit.

He was a tremendous writer.

Andy

Thanks for the (possible) help about the Robertsbridge “doodleybug”. Old Jasper also had some colourful comments about the relative merits of “Eytalian” and “Gerryman” POWs but they’d best not be repeated in public (not where any older residents of Robertsbridge can see them anyhow)

Takes me back to the late 60’s when I was a student at the National College of Agricultural Engineering, near Shuttleworth. We shared a social network with Shuttleworth Agricultural College and they would come to our dances, we would go to theirs, and share the female company of the teacher training colleges in Bedford.

The problem for the Shutts guys was that old Mrs Shuttleworth was still living in part of the big house so they were not allowed to have dances there. Solution – wheel the aircraft out of one of the hangars, insert lots of straw bales round the walls for seating, a big space heater in the centre and get on with it!

I somehow doubt that either Elfin Safety or the Shuttleworth Collection would approve these days!

Sorry Eric, been away

lost in admiration over the T21 progress as usual. See you at Lasham for the VGC rally I hope

Dave

The fuselages were both filled with water and immersed in water (the latter presumably to negate the weight of the water filling. ) The wings stuck out of the tanks and I believe were subjected to jacking forces to simulate flight loads.

All pressure vessels (boilers, compressed air tanks etc) are tested by pressurised water filling as a liquid is incompressible. When a vessel failure occurs there is no stored energy in the water so the failure is only develops a small amount in relative safety – as opposed to what could be effectively an explosion if a gas or vapour were used.

Which is what happened to the Comets in flight – explosive expansion of the pressurisation air which ripped the fuselages to bits. If they’d been filled with water and not air, all that would have happened would have been the initial small tear in the corner of the window.

But of course full of water it a) wouldn’t have been able to leave the ground b) the passengers couldn’t have lit their cigarettes.

The first photo looks a bit like my Grandad’s air raid shelter. He worked for Blue Circle Cement in Northfleet and he must have been a dab hand at making concrete with it as well. I bet it’s still in the back garden of his old house because when I was a kid it looked absolutely indestructible!

Also see the other thread titled “Rene Mouchotte”