Down memory lane !

[Boris]

Just been off on a spell of remembering late 1950/early 60’s Saturday afternoon teatime TV, specifically the programme “Garry Halliday” link

which was dragged out from the memory banks by this traffic report re. movement of a 1954 Bristol Type 170 Freighter up  the M5 around Bristol tomorrow :- Click here

Anyone else recall it ?  Silver City Airways, Lydd Airport, “The Voice”, Terence Longdon, Terence Alexander, Bill Kerr ?

Never trust an atom - they make up everything !

[Dave Rice]

Yes this has been all over the local news this week. I remember them as Airfix models when I was a kid but I didn’t realise they were this big.

[Ed P]

I have very distant memories of once doing a cross-channel hop on Silver Cities Airways who used something similar. It was novel climbing up onto an upper deck positioned over the loading bay. Noisy as hell is my other memory.

[Alan Wood]

Yes it does bring back memories. In 1965/7 I was in the RAF posted to RAF Kuching in Sarawak.

The Bristol Freighters used by the Kiwi Air Force were daily visitors bringing in supplies from Singapore/Malaysia.

I wonder if the photo of the one coming home was one that I worked on in those far off days.

[Richard]

There are a few others abandoned where they fell across the globe. I am not surprised they were noisy with two thumping great radial engines banging away to keep them and their freight airborne.

A couple of relations worked for the Bristol Aeroplane Company during and post war. One wartime bomb fell on a shelter there I was told they never attempted to dig out the victims, that upset a few of the family at the time. I believe there is a memorial plaque there now.

I have their long service watch from one of the relations, it is currently my daily wrist watch

[Dave Rice]

I heard that story too Richard (I am a Filton boy but now live in Stoke Gifford) but not the leaving the bodies there part.

Just discovered this reference The aftermath of a raid “The factory death toll was high due to a series of direct hits by high explosive bombs on six crowded air raid shelters. The scenes confronting the rescue parties were horrific, shelters had caved in burying the occupants. Others had been blasted wide open mutilating the occupants almost beyond recognition. The task of identification was a sad and unenviable duty. “ So I suspect it’s Chinese whispers.

There are many shelters still visible inside the airfield boundary but inaccessible even now it’s disused, but I don’t think it’s them that were involved. I know it’s not the ones on the hill by the golf course as I used to pay in them as a kid. The old shadow factory (Rolls Royce) buildings were demolished several years ago (new factory now opposite) and it’s being redeveloped as a business park. Any plaque is probably now in that new building. **

The “new” West of England Mail Centre is on part of the site and the concrete radial engine casts that decorated the front of the oldest RR factory plus the old Bristol Mail Centre war memorial plaques have been preserved outside reception.

** Just found some maps in the earlier pages of the article and it wasn’t the RR shelters. I suspect it was the ones on the edge of the airfield by what is now the Brabazon Hangers (where Concord was built and stood for years when it came home). I worked on this site and have never heard of a plaque, but if it’s by the shelters no-one goes there as it would have been airside and therefore out of bounds.

[Bob Williams]

Alan Wood wrote:

Yes it does bring back memories. In 1965/7 I was in the RAF posted to RAF Kuching in Sarawak. The Bristol Freighters used by the Kiwi Air Force were daily visitors bringing in supplies from Singapore/Malaysia. I wonder if the photo of the one coming home was one that I worked on in those far off days.

I was there around that time briefly, on detachment to 225 Squadron, from. Do you remember this Alan?

http://tinyurl.com/y74yq26p

I can’t recall the SNCO’s name involved, but I was told that he was treated abominally badly until he was acquitted. A lot of us “Teeny Weeny Airways” brown jobs were rushed in straight from Middle Wallop training school, having worked with the Scout that was also rushed in to give more heli support. Baptism of fire: the Scout fell out of the sky regularly, as its development and testing was rushed too. A large number of airframe & engine mods were carried out in service. After the Indonesians gave up with Sukarno’s exit, we were rushed back to Blighty, in time for Aden. My arms were punctured many times in a couple of years!

EDIT – I built a Bristol Freighter as a kid from (I think) an Airfix or Revell kit. I think it was larger than 1/72nd, as it came with RAF figures and a Land Rover, freight doors opened and the ramp came down. Just emailed the nephew I gave it to, as he was the one who always looked after the stuff I gave him. He might just have it still, as he still has many of my old Dinky toys in prime nick.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Richard]

Dave thank you. Darn it I have just lost the first try at a post! Try again. This tends to substantiate the closed in shelter story, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/05/a4079405.shtml

My mother’s brother was a design engineer and a ‘stress department head’ according to family folk lore. He was in a very close by shelter so saw a great deal of the carnage and, like most was very badly affected. Mother did not know the full details but whispers may not have helped anyone back then. Perhaps they did dig out most of what they could, I do not know; filling in the scar might have helped to ease the pain of those left.

My other uncle was my father’s brother and an inspector so he may well have been in a different area when the bombs fell. It is his long service watch I now wear.

Addendum, I always felt that there was an implied suggestion that someone might still have survived the initial blast and not been pulled out Your linked accounts and other knowledge make it very clear that could never have been the case, so one ghost can be laid to rest.

[Dave Rice]

Well they may well still be there, but on Google maps I can only see the ones on the A38 end of the runway (they are all intact).

The airfield is now closed and due to be redeveloped into housing. However the shelters I am thinking of may be inside the Airbus site or the scrub around the railway line that is (now) the site boundary at that place. If they get dug up we will hear about it, there’s enough people left (or descendants of) that know of the history, if not the details.

If they were further up the site that has all been heavily redeveloped by the successors to BAC over the years (although you would still recognise the corner of Southmead Rd and Golf Course Lane). If they did anything with them it would have been done properly as generations work there.

My B-I-L has worked for Airbus / GKN (manufacturing outsourced to them) on the site for 15 – 20 years. I will ask him if he knows anything.

Just seen a clip of the local news, the 170 is now in the Brabazon Hanger. I think the wings get moved in the early hours.

[Boris]

Alan Wood wrote:

Yes it does bring back memories. In 1965/7 I was in the RAF posted to RAF Kuching in Sarawak. The Bristol Freighters used by the Kiwi Air Force were daily visitors bringing in supplies from Singapore/Malaysia. I wonder if the photo of the one coming home was one that I worked on in those far off days.

This one was NZ5911 – apparently also used in the Vietnam war.

Never trust an atom - they make up everything !

[Alan Wood]

Hi Bob

Yes I do remember it very well and I agree that the SNCO was very badly treated. I believe it was because he countersigned in the Form 700 without actually checking it out because the chopper was desperately needed for a mission. Memory may be faulty as it is over 50 years ago and at the time I was on 209 Sqn (the twin and single pioneers) and on a detachment to Sibu up country. Now that does bring back memories but I won’t go into that here.

If I am honest I can say that the nearly two years I spent in Kuching were two the best years of my life (I volunteered for the extra year) and I am still in contact with a local Chinese family with whom I made great friends.

[Boris]

My uncle was a flight sergeant on maintenance of the Dragonfly/Sycamores of CFS Helicopter Wing at Tern Hill in 1962/63 and he was then then transferred out to Borneo during the actions there to do the same on (Whirlwinds ?).

Never trust an atom - they make up everything !

[Bob Williams]

I can’t say that the brief time I spent there was great Alan, but the whole Confrontation was such an emegency for the UK at the time, we were pushed into different roles and I found myself, along with other REME/AAC/Signals/RAOC bods, in Jungle training and out on patrol. That’s the bit I enjoyed, strangely enough. I learned a lot from some of the “Teeth Arms” that we were serving with.

Boris, there were not many of those older machines left when I was serving, none with AAC as I recall, all with RAF. But we did have the worst heli ever: the SR Skeeter, which had an ancient D.H. Gypsy Major engine. If the combined weight of pilot and observer was over 24 stones, the thing would not lift off. It would not fly well in even moderate winds. When I served in Detmold, BAOR, I remember the last 27 of these heli’s, in vics of 3, back to Blighty to be scrapped. They flew over what was 71 Aircraft Workshop and I believe they had to make several refuelling stops en route to the UK. The noise was tremendous, as they flew over at a very low altitude.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Ed P]

Bob – Teeth Arms ? The Arrsepdia includes the AAC in this category (who have a great entry in the reference Bible!)

[Boris]

Bob Williams wrote:

But we did have the worst heli ever: the SR Skeeter, which had an ancient D.H. Gypsy Major engine. If the combined weight of pilot and observer was over 24 stones, the thing would not lift off. It would not fly well in even moderate winds.

I’d totally forgotten that one was used by the CFS.

As a boy of 10 at the time I stayed with them at Tern Hill I was fascinated there was a WW2 static Kawasaki Oscar on display there and I was allowed in the cockpit.

I’m fairly sure that the young lad just by the prop in this picture on the Tern Hill wiki site

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Ternhill

is me ?

Never trust an atom - they make up everything !

[Author]

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