TRANSCRIPTIE 🔗
WEBVTT
00:00:06.551 --> 00:00:09.416
Hello and welcome to the Field Association on Air.
00:00:09.416 --> 00:00:17.222
We are a group of residents who are passionate about tackling all aspects of local and national government decisions that affect local communities.
00:00:17.222 --> 00:00:31.530
In each episode, various members of the Field Association will be exploring a range of subject matters, discussing all the angles of each issue and interviewing those who can add an expert or helpful point of view.
00:00:31.530 --> 00:00:38.331
So grab yourself a tea or coffee and listening as we look to navigate through these current challenges.
00:00:38.331 --> 00:00:43.043
Welcome to the the Three Fields on Air podcast.
00:00:43.125 --> 00:00:44.787
Today is something slightly different.
00:00:44.787 --> 00:00:46.912
We're actually talking to Ross Stewart.
00:00:46.912 --> 00:00:52.981
Well, I'll let Ross introduce himself and explain what he, what his involvement was with the airbase.
00:00:52.981 --> 00:01:08.582
But it's a very special place up there, lots of, lots of elements that are close to people's hearts and I'm hoping well I know that this will be really insightful for a lot of people who know the bases up there but don't really know some of the history and what's gone on and why it's so special to a lot of people.
00:01:08.582 --> 00:01:16.171
So welcome Ross, if you'd be kind enough to introduce yourself and just explain a bit about the history of the base and why it's so special.
00:01:17.159 --> 00:01:19.504
Right, well, I'm Ross Stewart.
00:01:19.504 --> 00:01:30.251
I was a Chief Inspector in the MOD police and I worked at Weather's Field for 12 years before I retired after 35 years police service.
00:01:30.251 --> 00:01:42.644
I was the police information manager and who ran the communications department, the after retiring in 2012,.
00:01:42.644 --> 00:01:47.352
Americans turn up at those gates every week.
00:01:47.352 --> 00:01:48.935
It's not surprising.
00:01:48.935 --> 00:01:53.611
Over 4,000 got married to local girls.
00:01:53.611 --> 00:02:04.575
In fact, I just looked at an article that I'd get ready for the event this week and it said 200 a month at that point in time when that was written.
00:02:05.460 --> 00:02:10.156
We're marrying local girls, so that's why because they come back here.
00:02:10.156 --> 00:02:20.655
They come to Braintree, ipswich, cambridge, that triangle, chelmsford, and they all have relatives in this area.
00:02:20.655 --> 00:02:24.311
So when they come over and visit relatives, they wanted to go back.
00:02:24.311 --> 00:02:43.281
You know the whole museum, because that's the second thing in my introduction is I became the curator of a museum there and now that is the Weather's Field their field heritage group, because we don't have a museum, so we had to take the word museum out of it.
00:02:43.281 --> 00:02:53.426
So we're Weather's Field their field heritage group and I'm the chairman of that and curator, because the archive still exists.
00:02:54.770 --> 00:03:03.967
And that came about because there was a lady that wrote to the Chief Consul Al Fitchcock in 2014.
00:03:03.967 --> 00:03:07.293
Her husband she was from Braintree.
00:03:07.293 --> 00:03:09.763
They married in 1961.
00:03:09.763 --> 00:03:28.168
She's lived in America all that time but they came back every two years to visit family in Braintree and her husband tried to get on the base to see where his old base that he had served at 2008 and 2012.
00:03:28.168 --> 00:03:30.271
And both times he was refused entry.
00:03:30.271 --> 00:03:32.375
That's understandable.
00:03:32.375 --> 00:03:42.860
Sometimes there was things going on and one of the other problems was that people that worked on that base at that time were public servants.
00:03:42.860 --> 00:03:48.326
They're not paid to be tourist guides, so they're meant to be sitting at a desk doing work.
00:03:48.326 --> 00:03:51.358
So you know, that was generally one of the reasons.
00:03:51.358 --> 00:03:56.268
Other reasons might be there might have been police exercises going on, etc.
00:03:56.268 --> 00:04:01.643
So, but he died in 2014.
00:04:01.643 --> 00:04:11.745
And his widow, the lady Carol Zimmer and he was Bruce Zimmer, he was a mechanic in the Air Force 1960, 61,.
00:04:11.745 --> 00:04:35.521
When he met her and married Carol wrote to the Chief Constable and his last his dying wish was to have his ashes scattered on the airfield and the Chief Constable was quite moved by that because basically, it was his third attempt to enter the base and he didn't refuse that.
00:04:35.521 --> 00:04:38.348
But no one knew where to scatter the ashes.
00:04:38.348 --> 00:04:41.396
So they contacted me.
00:04:41.516 --> 00:04:48.120
I retired and you know I was interested in the history and asked me if I would post the day and help out, which I did.
00:04:48.120 --> 00:05:02.430
After that, the Chief Constable called me over a cup of coffee and said Bruce, I've discovered there are lots of letters here and there are lots of people and I don't want to have Americans refused from entering the base.
00:05:02.430 --> 00:05:02.812
I've got.
00:05:02.812 --> 00:05:03.975
We've got nothing to hide.
00:05:03.975 --> 00:05:10.379
We've got nothing, but for the reasons that I gave earlier, it's not the job of a public servant to be a tourist guide.
00:05:10.379 --> 00:05:18.343
I said I thought you, being retired, maybe, and known the history, how would you fancy hosting them?
00:05:18.365 --> 00:05:22.132
So it evolved from there and subsequent meetings.
00:05:22.273 --> 00:05:47.206
After that we talked about the local people, the people that used to work there, history groups, et cetera, and by 2015, that evolved into having a museum, because everybody that came brought memorabilia and it grew and it grew and a number of people that listened to this podcast will have been at the museum, which ran in it properly from 2016 until COVID.
Load full transcript
00:05:47.567 --> 00:06:03.266
And then we had a few months after COVID and then the MOD, as we all know, the specter of the prison service and the Ministry of Justice moving in there loomed over us, and that's really where our problems started.
00:06:03.266 --> 00:06:12.543
We invited that team of people that came to tell us all about what they were going to do with the prison there and we'd answer all our questions.
00:06:12.543 --> 00:06:17.473
We invited them because they said they tried to ignore heritage.
00:06:17.473 --> 00:06:24.274
We invited them to the museum on the 5th of November I remember on 5th of November 2021.
00:06:24.274 --> 00:06:28.086
And on the 11th they never turned up.
00:06:28.086 --> 00:06:31.093
They accepted the invite but they didn't turn up.
00:06:31.093 --> 00:06:39.814
And on the 11th of November the power was turned off when the building, the museum was in, and we were told it was no longer safe to operate.
00:06:42.543 --> 00:06:46.031
I mean, that's a little bit tinged, that story, isn't it?
00:06:46.031 --> 00:06:48.324
That's a little bit sad, really, because it was on travel on quite nicely.
00:06:48.324 --> 00:06:49.562
But look, we've got.
00:06:49.562 --> 00:06:57.468
Obviously there's scampions in the news at the moment and they put a big play, don't they, on the Danbusters and the history and all that sort of thing.
00:06:57.468 --> 00:07:04.649
Is Weathersfield a bit boring compared to that, or has it got some amazing stories and history of its own?
00:07:05.701 --> 00:07:08.490
It has amazing stories, tony.
00:07:08.490 --> 00:07:12.550
First of all, the 416th that were there.
00:07:12.550 --> 00:07:17.291
They flew over 100 missions to France.
00:07:17.291 --> 00:07:27.392
Their primary job was the V1 sites in France ammunition depots and tank depots, et cetera.
00:07:27.392 --> 00:07:41.651
So they flew that and they were the first of the type of airplane to be used by the Americans over here was a medium bomber, medium light bomber, the A20 Havoc.
00:07:41.651 --> 00:07:47.543
So yeah, they got a great history After that.
00:07:48.346 --> 00:07:59.788
After they left, they moved over to France After D-Day and by September we had captured airfields in France as medium and light bombers.
00:07:59.788 --> 00:08:07.348
They moved to an airfield in France so they could then start to reach further north into Holland and Germany from France.
00:08:07.348 --> 00:08:28.488
So what moved into Weathersfield after that was the RAF, but it was a group like Weathersfield itself that's seldom talked about in its history, is like hidden away, because they were the RAF-38 group and they worked for the SAS and the Special Operations Executive, the SOE.
00:08:28.488 --> 00:09:23.447
Soe were trained at Audley and House and the SAS, believe it or not, moved into Essex and some people will know they were at Highlands House, they were at Slow House, they were a number of the big houses, different units, and in fact one
of those units, the supply and liaison part of the SAS, the 20th liaison group, were actually at the mushroom farm and it turns out that I didn't find out until 2017 that my grandfather was the Lieutenant Quarrenmaster there and he was also a French liaison officer, because two French units of SAS the 3rd and 4th SAS were based in Ipswich but they billeted at the mushroom farm and they would go on their big sterling bombers and they would fly out from there.
00:09:24.081 --> 00:09:33.668
And one of our favourite stories is a local man that many people will know and sadly he's passed away now, but he came to the museum twice was Barry Webb.
00:09:33.668 --> 00:09:38.945
He used to have a restroom in the Finchamfield called the Nosebag.
00:09:38.945 --> 00:09:46.408
Henry's wife, aileen Barry, was a pilot in World War II of one of those big sterling bombers at Weathersfield.
00:09:46.408 --> 00:09:51.567
So we had, you know, and we gathered amazing stories from him.
00:09:51.567 --> 00:09:53.086
He wrote 10 pages down.
00:09:53.086 --> 00:09:56.129
So there we go, the SAS.
00:09:56.519 --> 00:09:57.825
But it gets better than that.
00:09:57.825 --> 00:10:10.346
What we had was the first American tactical nuclear fighters and bombers at Weathersfield and we had nuclear bombs.
00:10:10.346 --> 00:10:48.328
We can't claim to have the first nuclear bomb, because RAF Scotland thought was also part of that, but we were in there as part of the first units of NATO with the F-84 Thunder Jets that the Americans flew there and then in 1957, they brought in the SuperSaver, the F-100 that everybody knows and it's a plane that everybody loves as the SuperSavers and many local people remember going up to the base and seeing them and hearing them flying over.
00:10:48.328 --> 00:11:10.830
And the famous story is when they used to go into the speed of sound, the sonic boom, they broke the windows at Spain's hall and Sir Bucco's rise called the commander up, sent his Rolls Royce down to pick him up and take him up there to ask about who was going to repair and fix the windows in Spain's hall to get it fixed.
00:11:11.379 --> 00:11:20.711
So, but yes, so the nuclear bombs then and then after that the last unit that we had was the Red Horse.
00:11:20.711 --> 00:11:22.184
So I think you're right.
00:11:22.184 --> 00:11:33.648
If you compare us to Scampton, our British history was kind of secretive the SAS and the RAF-38 group and the Special Operations Executive.
00:11:33.648 --> 00:11:48.708
So not much said, written or talked about that and the American history is not something the units that were there is not something that people nationally in Britain are, you know, affable with.
00:11:50.822 --> 00:12:01.650
I remember hearing a story I don't know if this is true or not, ross that when the planes were taken off from Weathersfield, one of the local farmers was taking potshots at it with a shotgun.
00:12:01.650 --> 00:12:02.363
Have you heard that?
00:12:03.299 -->
00:12:09.307
Yeah, well, that's a story that goes back to World War II the airfield.
00:12:09.307 --> 00:12:21.961
In fact, the celebration we're going to have this weekend, on Sunday, is the 80th anniversary of the airfield, so that's 80 years, 1943 to 1983.
00:12:21.961 --> 00:12:27.114
The airfield was actually ready and commissioned in December 1943.
00:12:27.114 --> 00:12:31.003
But prior to that it was used.
00:12:31.003 --> 00:12:41.528
There was a grass runway and that was used for spitfires and other airplanes that escorted the big bombers, the B-17s, from Ridgewell.
00:12:41.528 --> 00:13:05.240
And then it was decided that in 1942 that they would build a big airfield and a big concrete runway and the farm where in question was Peacock's farm, right at the end of where the old World War II runway ended, because it was expanded for the Super Saver Jets in 1957.
00:13:05.240 --> 00:13:20.619
And he lost his farm and it wasn't too happy about it because he had 50 acres and 25 of which he had cut down trees and plough and turned into arable land, so he used to fire his shotgun at them.
00:13:20.619 --> 00:13:31.878
Another farmer that used to fire his shotgun later on was when they took the Supersonic Jets engines, they used to take them over to the Gainesford Endend.
00:13:31.878 --> 00:13:39.014
There, the gate that goes to the Gainesford Endend and Fleurs Hall and the farmer there this always makes me chuckle.
00:13:39.053 --> 00:13:45.715
The farmer at Fleurs Hall was called Farmer Bloom and he had Fleurs Hall.
00:13:45.715 --> 00:13:58.558
They set his field on fire because when these jet engines are tested they were on the back of a truck, not the whole truck but just the carriage part of the truck.
00:13:58.558 --> 00:14:05.457
They were on one of those and tied down and then they'd fire up the engine to test that they repaired it properly.
00:14:05.457 --> 00:14:08.110
And the afterburner big flame.
00:14:08.110 --> 00:14:12.019
They had forgotten they hadn't put earthbanks up there.
00:14:12.019 --> 00:14:19.808
If you go there now you'll see they ended up putting 30 foot earthbanks because the flames went right into the field and set his field on fire.
00:14:19.808 --> 00:14:36.538
And the noise, the noise of those engines, because quite often to do at a time at that time would be horrific and he would come across with his shotgun and threatened to shoot airmen and that would be in the 1960s that that would have happened.
00:14:40.750 --> 00:14:41.613
Yeah, so I'm laughing at that.
00:14:41.613 --> 00:14:43.738
I'm sure if I had my field burnt down I wouldn't be.
00:14:43.738 --> 00:14:45.409
I'd probably pull out the shotgun as.
00:14:45.409 --> 00:14:51.493
I don't fancy his chances, though, against the whole air force, but fair play to.
00:14:51.493 --> 00:14:52.397
So what about?
00:14:52.397 --> 00:15:00.328
I mean again, you can still, from the perimeter, you can see all sorts of well, you can see a splatter in a building, can't you have variety buildings, including the hangars.
00:15:00.328 --> 00:15:02.696
What sort of buildings are still over there, ross?
00:15:02.696 --> 00:15:06.650
What special or architectural interest?
00:15:07.111 --> 00:15:28.898
Well, there are two T2 hangars, type two that is, and as far as we could find out from our research, in 1943, it was meant to be a B17 base of big bombers and an extension of Ridgewell and the Americans required type two hangars.
00:15:28.898 --> 00:15:42.735
They're really quite big hangars and there's not too many of them left around the UK and there's actually two weathersfields so and a lot of other places like Ridgewell itself.
00:15:42.735 --> 00:15:47.932
The T2 hangars have long gone and it's just fields up there and a few Nissan Hunts.
00:15:47.932 --> 00:15:53.649
So they're quite and they've got a long, good history of themselves.
00:15:53.649 --> 00:16:04.780
And, as far as we could find out but I can't prove the story, but we were told that in 1943, there was a shortage of steel in the UK.
00:16:04.780 --> 00:16:17.630
The Americans had asked for these two hangars, so the Americans prefabricated them at the steel in America and it was shipped over here, brought to Weathersfield and then built.
00:16:17.630 --> 00:16:25.154
So, as far as we know, they're possibly were created in America and built up over here.
00:16:25.154 --> 00:16:26.859
So type two hangars.
00:16:27.301 --> 00:16:30.431
The other buildings that exist is another one.
00:16:30.431 --> 00:16:31.875
I've mentioned the chapel.
00:16:31.875 --> 00:16:33.864
I have about trying to get it listed.
00:16:33.864 --> 00:16:46.585
The other thing that we didn't manage to get listed was there's five, there's eight people called Dutch Barnes because they look like Dutch Barnes, and in fact at the moment the farmers, I believe.
00:16:46.585 --> 00:17:03.423
I'm not sure if they're still allowed to, but the farmers store hay in them and Essex Fibregate used one or two of them for their road traffic rescue teams that trained up there.
00:17:03.423 --> 00:17:05.789
I'm not even sure if they're still on the site.
00:17:05.789 --> 00:17:10.545
It's very hard to find out anything that's happening on the site now.
00:17:10.545 --> 00:17:14.090
It's become more secretive than it did in the SES days, I think.
00:17:14.090 --> 00:17:25.779
So those eight Barnes are pretty much as they were when they were built in 1960.
00:17:25.779 --> 00:17:28.646
And as far as we're concerned they were unique.
00:17:29.008 --> 00:17:32.416
But Historic England didn't agree with that and neither did the MOD.
00:17:32.416 --> 00:17:49.237
They quoted the reason for failing the listing that, oh well, there are hangars like this Upper Hafer, by their own admission, they said, but they're actually bigger in a different type.
00:17:49.237 --> 00:17:53.435
And there are some of these hangars at Bentwaters.
00:17:53.435 --> 00:18:01.961
And yes, they're right, they're the same,
because Bentwaters and Woodbridge and Wellesfield were connected in the Cold War.
00:18:01.961 --> 00:18:07.453
The units worked from both and those hangars were there, but they're not all there.
00:18:07.453 --> 00:18:13.073
The thing about Wellesfield is they're all there as they were in 1960.
00:18:13.073 --> 00:18:26.611
In fact you can be seen in the film Think of Taylor Soldiers by with Gary Oldman and Benny Bid, benedict Cumberbatch, because they made an authentic background for a Cold War spy film.
00:18:26.711 --> 00:18:39.905
So it's quite interesting that they would say they weren't unique when pretty much most local historians and airfield historians would argue against that and say they were.
00:18:39.905 --> 00:18:54.005
What's also interesting about that is that they grade two listed the bump dump which sits next to that and it has three igloos that held nuclear bombs and one igloo and by igloo I just made it.
00:18:54.005 --> 00:19:11.729
It's like a concrete bunker with a lead lined in the heavy steel doors that they stored the bombs in and one of them they stored the detonators for the bombs and they've got blast walls and they kind of covered over with grass.
00:19:11.729 --> 00:19:15.116
The idea was that the Russians couldn't see them on a satellite.
00:19:15.116 --> 00:19:20.315
If you look from above it still just looks like a field next to the airfield.
00:19:20.715 --> 00:19:42.508
But the grade two listed those that they're not unique, because there are some of those that many of the other airfields, because by nature, the way they were built and the strength of them, they've not been demolished or destroyed and have not decayed very much, but they go hand in hand with the.
00:19:42.508 --> 00:19:47.339
The Victor Alert is what the Dutch the proper name for where the Dutch Barrens are.
00:19:47.339 --> 00:19:50.319
They go hand in hand, they complement each other as part of the history.
00:19:50.319 --> 00:19:58.240
So historic England's thinking on all that is quite difficult to figure out really.
00:19:59.766 --> 00:20:03.240
I've seen some of the pictures from the air and the Victor Alert sort of area.
00:20:03.240 --> 00:20:05.272
It's quite amazing.
00:20:05.272 --> 00:20:17.656
It's like little figures, of eight almost, and I think it might be yourself that said to me once the planes were already were always fuelled and facing downtown Moscow, ready to kind of zip out one at a time and shoot off.
00:20:18.058 --> 00:20:31.339
Yeah, yeah, it's in fact on our Facebook pages and the museum runs two runs one called RAF Weatherfield Heritage Group.
00:20:31.339 --> 00:20:42.015
That one you can't really post on, that you can comment on our posts, but that one is run by the museum secretary and it's purely about the history of the site.
00:20:42.015 --> 00:20:50.894
There's a second, more social one, that's a private site and you have to have good credentials and reason and connection to the air base to join it.
00:20:50.894 --> 00:21:03.163
And I administer that along with someone from America that served at Weatherfield and that one's more of a social one, the.
00:21:03.163 --> 00:21:06.730
Yeah, you you'll find that on there.
00:21:06.769 --> 00:21:12.339
There are some pilots that were here, cold war pilots that flew those jets.
00:21:12.339 --> 00:21:21.390
So we've been able to get firsthand experience from them of what happened there and they called it alert days and they would go there.
00:21:21.390 --> 00:21:24.026
And there's two buildings there.
00:21:24.026 --> 00:21:30.299
One was the canteen and the chef married a girl from Halstead, so he comes over every dog person.
00:21:30.299 --> 00:21:34.270
So he comes over every couple of years to visit family in Halstead.
00:21:34.270 --> 00:21:37.259
He told us he cooked for 25 people in there.
00:21:38.061 --> 00:21:49.874
There would be eight pilots and eight crew chiefs and the building next to it had a crew ready room, kind of like you'd think, scramble, scramble, sitting, reading newspapers and putting cards etc.
00:21:49.874 --> 00:21:57.339
And it had rooms and they billeted there for four or five days and they were ready to scramble.
00:21:57.339 --> 00:22:02.299
Two airplanes always had a pilot in it and a crew chief with it and they couldn't.
00:22:02.299 --> 00:22:04.339
There's a red line in front of that barn.
00:22:04.339 --> 00:22:07.669
If you look at those Dutch barns today, you'll see a red painted line.
00:22:07.669 --> 00:22:23.319
Had to be two people across that If only one person tried to cross it the police security guards, who also come back and visit Chesterfield, one of our favourites on the Facebook page their instruction was to shoot anybody.
00:22:23.319 --> 00:22:25.146
So it was a two man rule.
00:22:25.146 --> 00:22:32.335
One person could not cross that red line on their own because they might have been stealing a jet with a nuclear bomb on it.
00:22:32.861 --> 00:22:36.711
All eight planes would have the nuclear bombs on them and ready to go.
00:22:36.711 --> 00:22:42.279
Two would have the pilot in it and the crew chief would be there to help the pilot get started off and go.
00:22:42.279 --> 00:22:53.292
The airplanes would take off down the runway two at a time and they would have an envelope in there with their instructions telling them, once they got in there, what their target was.
00:22:53.292 --> 00:23:01.259
It would have been predetermined what their target was, unless that was changed over the radio so, and then they would swap over.
00:23:01.259 --> 00:23:13.031
So they would do a couple of hours in there, then they go back and have six hours rest and another two would go out, and if they scrambled they would all get out and then the next two planes.
00:23:13.031 --> 00:23:25.531
So the way that you see those bombs pointing is two, two, two and I down the taxiway on the runway and off to somewhere in the Soviet Union.
00:23:28.163 --> 00:23:43.746
So
Ross, what's amazing about that is, I mean, I drive past those barns, those Victor Alert almost every day when I'm sort of going out with the dogs or whatever, or walking with them or on my way to the dog walk or whatever it might be, and it's so peaceful and it's so quiet.
00:23:43.746 --> 00:23:52.803
Obviously, we know it's about to get a little bit busier over there, but it's so quiet and the history is all around you and, funny enough, you talk about flowers.
00:23:52.803 --> 00:24:00.166
Oh, I go down around Games to the End quite a lot, walk the dogs and what have you, and it's just all around you.
00:24:00.166 --> 00:24:07.186
There's all concrete posts and look where bunkers were and the stop gates and that sort of thing, and it's just peace and quiet now.
00:24:07.186 --> 00:24:14.930
But you can imagine and with your stories you just transport yourself back in time it was an absolute hive of activity.
00:24:16.144 --> 00:24:18.159
Do you know what the meet and greet?
00:24:18.159 --> 00:24:35.339
I'm going to show a 22 minute black and white film that was taken in World War II and it goes through the kind of mission from start to finish, from the briefing at Weathersfield in 1944.
00:24:35.339 --> 00:24:49.891
It's a fantastic piece of film and people can find it at the 416th website and they'll find the film on there and I'm going to run that in UCD Airplanes taking off down the runway.
00:24:49.891 --> 00:25:01.690
When I was a chief inspector there, on one of those sort of days where it's quite stressful and you've had a bad day in the office, quite often at lunchtime I'd get out of the office and I'd walk down the runway.
00:25:01.690 --> 00:25:25.054
And it's so because it de-stressed you, because I'd walked down that runway from one end to the other during my lunch break and the quietness, the solitude of it that I would walk down there and I could imagine those World War II airplanes because I knew the film and I could just see them going down the runway and taking off.
00:25:25.054 --> 00:25:28.329
It's quite a wonderful idea.
00:25:28.861 --> 00:25:42.443
I have to spend two hours with the Colonel from the US Embassy discussing the World War II Memorial plaques.
00:25:44.731 --> 00:25:58.252
I've been doing the Himmials back and forth between the 416th and the MOD police and the DIO to try and get it sorted out.
00:25:58.252 --> 00:26:19.336
Now they refused to hand them over to the museum in March this year when the 416th Bomb Group Association, as the relatives of the men from World War II, asked us if we could recover it for them.
00:26:19.336 --> 00:26:24.972
But the DIO said that the property of the United States Air Force is taken for a congressman.
00:26:24.972 --> 00:26:44.821
For one of those relatives, steve Roy, whose father was a mechanic in World War II in the 400s, taken for him to go to his congressman to get the congressman to write to the ambassador to get them to try and sort it out.
00:26:44.821 --> 00:26:56.252
And that's why the Colonel of the military at Atashi for the Air Force called me today to see what I could do and I said, well, I've already tried.
00:26:56.252 --> 00:27:08.800
They said, well, let's try again, but the embassy will support in trying to get this sorted out and try and get these memorial plaques recovered from the MOD.
00:27:08.800 --> 00:27:13.053
So I had a long day of it today.
00:27:13.213 --> 00:27:14.016
Oh bless you.
00:27:14.016 --> 00:27:16.724
It seems such an easy thing to do, doesn't it?
00:27:16.724 --> 00:27:18.631
Just get them and hand them over.
00:27:18.651 --> 00:27:19.733
Well, that's what he said.
00:27:19.733 --> 00:27:22.098
He said this has been going on for over a year.
00:27:22.098 --> 00:27:25.913
Why is there a problem with handing them over to the museum?
00:27:25.913 --> 00:27:29.838
It's a pretty little bit of the brass.
00:27:29.838 --> 00:27:40.000
What was the issue for the, the IO and the MOD police from handing over to us?
00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:41.061
I said, well, I don't know.
00:27:41.061 --> 00:27:50.872
But they said that they would contact the United States Air Force and hand them over to them as it was their property.
00:27:50.872 --> 00:27:54.721
But they obviously never done that because they're still in the professional MOD police.
00:27:54.721 --> 00:27:55.912
So we'll see.
00:27:55.912 --> 00:27:57.516
But that's the way it goes.
00:27:57.516 --> 00:28:09.023
You know that we've always had a not too great relationship with them, since they decided that we had to leave the air base.
00:28:09.200 --> 00:28:10.112
Well, let's just.
00:28:10.112 --> 00:28:16.105
I mean, you've touched on it, but talk to me about this event that you're organising for this coming.
00:28:16.105 --> 00:28:18.050
Is it this Sunday, the 20th?
00:28:18.050 --> 00:28:18.592
Am I right?
00:28:19.051 --> 00:28:20.674
Yeah, on Sunday the 20th.
00:28:20.674 --> 00:28:45.299
We chose that because August the 20th is when the Cold War Group, the 20th Fighter, wing 20 again and that's actually it's 80 years since they were actually formed as a fighter group for World War II, the 20th Fighter Group.
00:28:45.299 --> 00:28:47.731
So that was one reason for Tuesday.
00:28:47.731 --> 00:28:54.790
Another one was that the World War II group 416 it's actually the time when they were formed.
00:28:54.790 --> 00:29:00.123
They formed in 1943 in August and they came to Weathersfield on the 1st of February.
00:29:00.123 --> 00:29:01.874
So it was quite an appropriate day.
00:29:01.874 --> 00:29:12.700
We had to pick a day early in the year last year to allow Americans to organise their holiday trips, come to visit family, tie in with it.
00:29:12.700 --> 00:29:20.306
So we got 20 Americans, 10 actually coming over from America and 10 what I call Anglo Americans.
00:29:20.767 --> 00:29:28.532
Not all of them went home again some of them loved it here so much that they stayed here a few and brain tree, the
Weathersfield area, etc.
00:29:28.532 --> 00:29:44.183
So so we got 20 in total and they'll be there and we we do have a private meeting agreed because we're limited on space for that parking space is my biggest problem there, probably.
00:29:44.183 --> 00:30:10.382
But and people that they get them in, but people that supported the museum we decided to invite along to that and then it starts at 10 o'clock in the morning but all those invites have gone out and those spaces being filled, but half past 12 we'll start the public event in Weathersfield and we'll all move away from where the the private meeting greet is.
00:30:10.382 --> 00:30:21.532
There be, I believe, about 22 military vehicles from World War II and that the people that do these four different groups have supported us.
00:30:21.532 --> 00:30:24.784
You know they could have went to Ramsey's 1940 weekend.
00:30:24.784 --> 00:30:27.674
They could have went to Bentwater's 80th anniversary.
00:30:27.674 --> 00:30:34.537
They chose to come to Weathersfield because they want to support us and try and get this museum up and running again.
00:30:34.537 --> 00:30:37.751
They believe that the history of Weathersfield is so important.
00:30:37.751 --> 00:30:39.659
So there's about 22 of them.
00:30:39.659 --> 00:30:47.461
They all dress up, they're wonderful, they're great people, they're great fun and there'll be a great day with them.
00:30:48.544 --> 00:30:50.890
The pavilion at the sports field.
00:30:50.890 --> 00:30:53.316
They're going to move down there and part of that as well.
00:30:53.316 --> 00:31:04.913
The pavilion will run a history of the village exhibition and we'll run a mini exhibition in the snooker room of the club and everybody's welcome to go down there and see that.
00:31:04.913 --> 00:31:23.574
Also in the club we'll be having a UK versus USA darts match, so it'll be run by the club, probably starting about four o'clock, five o'clockish time, and some of the Americans we know from our facebook page have been buying dartboards and practicing before they get they get here.
00:31:23.574 --> 00:31:26.002
It was a big class time for the Americans.
00:31:26.002 --> 00:31:34.403
They all remember playing darts when they were over here in the 19, from the 1950s to the to 1990.
00:31:34.703 --> 00:31:38.832
In the village hall there'll be I'll be giving the talk.
00:31:38.832 --> 00:31:57.721
Making this talk different, I'll call it POW, so not prisoners of war or prisoners of Weathersfield, it's people of Weathersfield and I'm going to run through chronologically in the 80 years, various people of Weathersfield that I think are worth mentioning.
00:31:57.721 --> 00:32:06.275
After that there'll be a live singer and a bar in the village hall as well.
00:32:07.135 --> 00:32:10.645
That sounds fantastic, so is anyone welcome to come along to the public event.
00:32:11.175 --> 00:32:11.958
The public event.
00:32:11.958 --> 00:32:13.743
Anyone's welcome to come along.
00:32:13.743
--> 00:32:21.188
Yes, obviously, respect the village, respect the people that live in the village.
00:32:21.188 --> 00:32:23.680
Parking will be up at the sports field.
00:32:23.680 --> 00:32:37.734
There'll be public parking space up there because, being the village it is, it's not got a lot of parking space in the streets etc and the residents so generally use that, so people are welcome to go there.
00:32:37.734 --> 00:32:38.957
There'll be a food fan.
00:32:38.997 --> 00:32:46.449
We've been lucky that the gourmet chef has stepped in to help us.
00:32:46.449 --> 00:32:48.823
He's done an American menu for the day.
00:32:48.823 --> 00:32:55.694
The other company that stepped in to support us and helped is Pump House Brewery from Toppersfield.
00:32:55.694 --> 00:32:59.685
They're creating a special gift box for the day.
00:32:59.685 --> 00:33:09.347
They've got ales that they already made about the World War II airplane and about the Yi Day.
00:33:09.347 --> 00:33:24.344
Paul from Pump House Brewery tells me they've designed a special gift box for the event and there'll be three bottles of beer in there the ninth-havoc ale, amber, allied amber, don't know what the third one will be.
00:33:24.344 --> 00:33:35.686
It'll be £10 a box and they, I expect, will be on sale in the village hall, the village club and at the Green man Pub in Toppersfield and at Pump House Brewery.
00:33:36.195 --> 00:33:37.339
We have a bus going up there.
00:33:37.339 --> 00:33:40.682
It's a double-decker bus I don't really want to talk too much about that.
00:33:40.682 --> 00:33:43.883
We have a big event like this.
00:33:43.883 --> 00:33:57.583
Well, it grew arms and legs and one of our problems has been we've been so busy focusing on other things we forgot about the amount of parking space at the meet and greet and we forgot about the bus can only hold 52 people.
00:33:57.583 --> 00:34:04.067
So I think the bus is fairly well built up already, but it might not be.
00:34:04.775 --> 00:34:12.083
Well, ross, I said this to Andrew on the last podcast Because this is listened to by literally millions of people.
00:34:12.083 --> 00:34:13.797
I'm going to apologise now.
00:34:13.797 --> 00:34:18.300
Obviously, if there's a sudden rush on Sunday from all the listeners, all right.
00:34:18.300 --> 00:34:19.384
Well, listen, ross.
00:34:19.384 --> 00:34:22.563
I just want to finish up by asking what are your hopes for the museum?
00:34:22.563 --> 00:34:25.684
We've literally just got a couple of minutes left.
00:34:25.684 --> 00:34:27.199
Hopes for the museum.
00:34:27.199 --> 00:34:28.423
Would you like to get back on the base?
00:34:28.423 --> 00:34:29.684
What would you like the future to be?
00:34:30.976 --> 00:34:32.681
We'd love to be back on the base.
00:34:32.681 --> 00:34:42.606
We've, you know, there's been a few possibilities and they've all fallen through, the latest one being the greedy duck to do a display in there.
00:34:42.606 --> 00:34:45.362
We're very lucky to local farmers.
00:34:45.362 --> 00:34:47.407
I gave a storage space.
00:34:47.407 --> 00:34:52.181
That's how much archive we had, so we're very lucky there.
00:34:53.076 --> 00:34:55.920
The future, I don't know.
00:34:55.920 --> 00:35:04.126
We would love to get back on the base but we just don't see it happening because either home office and the MOD just don't communicate with anybody.
00:35:04.126 --> 00:35:11.068
It doesn't seem possible to be able to get the dialogue, to get that going.
00:35:11.068 --> 00:35:13.527
So what could happen?
00:35:14.335 --> 00:35:17.925
Looking at the local plan I've got the right name for it, the neighborhood plan.
00:35:17.925 --> 00:35:29.146
That's how the parish councils and in that there's a lovely map on their fantastic map that has the bomb dump now graded to listed as a heritage area.
00:35:29.146 --> 00:35:32.503
I don't see any reason why we couldn't get into there.
00:35:32.503 --> 00:35:51.226
And even if we can't get the public interest now, it could give us a year or so with funding from the councils, the heritage, Essex heritage committees and groups Braintree District Council, parish council to start to create a wonderful heritage site in there.
00:35:51.226 --> 00:36:03.527
And we have the items to go in it, we have the knowledge and the stories to help to run it, and it's something that the Braintree Council could build on as a heritage and tourism center.
00:36:03.527 --> 00:36:08.126
So that might be one of our aspirations for the future that we might start looking at.
00:36:09.217 --> 00:36:26.143
Ross, I think that sounds like a fantastic idea and obviously we'd love to support you, and hopefully that will come out in the neighborhood plan as well and we'll see the museum available for the local community for years and years to come, because I think it'd be a great asset a great asset, and we'd be lovely to keep that knowledge, wouldn't it?
00:36:26.143 --> 00:36:26.876
So?
00:36:26.916 --> 00:36:35.728
I'd keep this to you and we'll go back into storage for six months after this event and then we'll sit down and we'll review it there.
00:36:35.728 --> 00:36:43.608
But maybe somebody will pick up on that idea of getting us into the bomb dump and using the buildings in there.
00:36:44.597 --> 00:36:45.219
Ross, well, listen.
00:36:45.219 --> 00:37:20.048
Thank you very much for your time, really appreciate it, and good luck on Sunday you.