Happy 4th... Strangely enough they don't even acknowledge it over here.
We arose this morning after a warm night in Cambridge. The night wasn’t really warm, but the hotel room was. We set out on the A-203 headed for the largest DollHouse and miniature store in the United Kingdom. We junctioned the A-1123 and two hundred yards south was the store. Not at all what we had expected. We pulled into a farm yard with evidence of a working farm, and parked the car—then proceeded to the door marked shop. It was not what we would call a big shop, but it had loads of stuff from house kits to bits of crockery and fake food. Nancy attempted to buy an item from the catalogue, but they couldn’t find it on the price list and the lady explained that was a good thing since they had not worked well anyway. We shopped for something else as a gift and then proceeded south and east taking some unmarked roads to the main target of today’s adventure, the Imperial War Museum at the Duxford Air Base. Peter was there to see two award winning buildings and the Concorde, and I was there to see some aircraft.
The first building was the air-space building which held exhibits about the history of British aviation and a number of aircraft. We saw restored versions of the Sunderland flying boat, the Lancaster, A Comet the first jet airliner, A Mosquito and about 26 other aircraft, the exhibits in the balcony about the changing principles and materials of aircraft production were also very interesting. The highlight for Pete was a walk through of the Concorde airliner, a relatively tiny cabin compared to the air bus or 747 of today. We left the building and walked north to the American air museum.
On our walk north we passed a parked B-17 and two other antique aircraft. The building for the American planes is amazing. It’s a beautiful building, and the contents are inspiring. After a sandwich lunch we walked around admiring a B-52-huge, a B-24, a B-17 partially disassembled, A TBM-4, and SBD2, and an F4F Wildcat, all navy planes, and a P-51 We went outside to work our way back toward the car. We saw a prefab house used to resettle bombed out families, which was actually bigger than most tenement flats in use at the time. Some of these prefab plywood homes were in use until 1970’s. We met a lady who had lived in one when she was young. We also examined a 9.2” coast defense weapon that was originally emplaced at Gibraltar. While we were looking at these, the parked B-17 took off and headed North.
The next building was devoted to the Battle of Britain. It contained a fiberglass replica of a Spitfire, A crashed Me 109 which did crash and was sent on tour—including the United States during the war. There were some vehicles and a semi-restored He-111, a V-1and other static exhibits. For a break Nancy and I watched a film history of the Duxford Base, one of the first Royal Flying Corps bases in England until the 1960’s as a RAF fighter base.
The next building was the restoration in progress building where some vintage aircraft were being rebuilt. They are working on a Blenheim Mark I bomber as well as some German aircraft. I was impressed by the aircraft in various stages of disassembly with parts on workbenches ready to be fitted or painted. The machines seemed to be more alive than the static displays. In a building close by they had some naval vessels, a MTB wooden and small to sail and fight in the channel. They also had a British midget submarine, the ones launched against the Tripitiz, this is defiantly a service that you would not want to volunteer for tiny cramped and scary.
The final building we spent time in---we didn’t see the entire place—was a hanger for privately owned aircraft that were based at Duxford. These were working planes that flew with some regularity. There were three or four spitfires, a Wildcat, a Beacat, a Typhoon, a Corsair, a P-51 Mustang, almost all single engine planes. There was a twin engine Catalina PBY flying boat that some chaps were reconditioning, they were selling shares of ownership only 20,000 pounds if any one is interested.
The final stop was the gift shop with many many things. While we were looking, they announced that the B-17 which had taken off earlier was returning and would land shortly. We (almost everybody in the gift shop and the rest of the place rushed out to see it land and taxi, and park. Many pictures were taken. After a brief retour of the gift shop we headed back to Cambridge taking back roads. Then after Sainbury’s dinner of sandwiches and fruit we retired to our very hot room to try and get some rest.
11,962 Neil Steps
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