My wife and I went along to Fairlop Waters last Sunday and we were pretty disgusted by what we found there by way of wartime remembrance. I think the pictures and the captions say it all.
The new information panel at Fairlop Waters. It’s made of wood and will probably last as long as one of the German bombers shot down by the fighter pilots who operated from this airfield.
This shows the care and consideration exhibited by whoever was responsible for this magnificient tribute. They couldn’t even bother to check the spelling!
The Fairlop War Memorial. This disgraceful and irreverent exhibit, set out on a table outside the restaurant, was all that this borough (or Vision, whoever they are) could muster by way of a tribute to the magnificent work done by the brave pilots who flew from this airfield during the second world war. It is an insult to the memory of those who died in the air.
Editor's Note: There was a well attended remembrance service at this location on 11th November, organised by the Fairlop Heritage Group. The table appears to be the wreaths laid by two MPs, the leaders of the local Political Parties and various others. What else would you want done with them?
Note to Ed:
ReplyDeleteI was not questioning the sincerity and honourability of those good people who attended the memorial service and presented tributes, or attempting for one second to devalue their efforts. My point was exactly the one you raise: where indeed do you put those tributes? It is seventy years after the Battle of Britain and at one of the sites which was instrumental in winning that battle at the cost of many lives there is still no memorial where a tribute can be placed. A small memorial could have been put in place probably for the cost of a couple of square yards of Olympic running track.
When will the equivocation stop and action begin?
Thank you for the clarification.
ReplyDeleteWell done for spotting the spelling mistake! I always say the only folk who do not make mistakes are those who do not do anything.
ReplyDeleteHe managed to spot that heritage boards are made of wood, but failed to notice they are made from seasoned Oak specifically chosen to last in all weathers.
If Alfred had attended the Remembrance ceremony he would have seen that wreaths were laid in an appropriate setting as befits a sincere event. It was decided that the wreaths (not exhibits) could not be left in the open as these would either be disturbed by animals or blown away in the wind, so were placed under cover on a table mounted on our flag. I fail to comprehend how this can be considered disgraceful or irreverent.
Alfred should go inside the clubhouse and see the memorial displays which pays fitting tribute to all those who served and died at Fairlop.
On a point of order, had Alfred read the heritage boards properly he would have noticed that RAF Station Fairlop was NOT operational in the Battle of Britain, which is one reason why Fairlop is not give the prominence it rightly deserves.
David Martin
Fairlop Heritage Group
David has also sent in some photographs which I have uploaded to Picasa here.
ReplyDeleteWhereas it is factually correct that Fairlop was not an "operational" airfield during the Battle of Britain, it did have a role to play.
ReplyDeleteAir Chief Marshal Hugh "Stuffy" Dowding, C.O. Fighter Command, was an excellent planner and, in addition to the "Chain Home" system of early warning using radar and ground observers, he decided that each operational airfield would have an "emergency backup" as he reasoned that the Luftwaffe would almost certainly target RAF airfields. These emergency airfields were in many cases local flying clubs and the RAF had a "kit" of tents and spare equipment that they could transport if an airfield was bombed out.
Thus Hornchurch had Fairlop as its backup, as did North Weald with Stapleford.
A former Barnardo boy of my acquaintance who was an 8-year-old in 1940 remembers that Fairlop was in use in 1940 for basic pilot training on Tiger Moths and Gloster Gladiator bi-plane fighters and for a short time was used for barrage-balloon training. There were stories that Hornchurch pilots used to "borrow" aircraft for a "joy ride" to Fairlop, much to the annoyance of the Hornchurch C.O.!!
even seasoned Oak can be "setalight"
ReplyDeleteAlthough I would not want this issue to develop into World War Three, I feel I must respond to the comments made quite fairly by David Martin.
ReplyDeleteYes David, I fully acknowledge that everyone makes mistakes. I was also aware that the heritage board is made of oak. I just thought it might have been mounted perhaps in some kind of non-rusting metal. Possibly there were financial restrictions.
Primarily though, once again the major point I was making appears to have been totally missed. Perhaps I was not clear enough. Disgraceful and irreverent were the adjectives I used to lament the fact that after seventy years the only place on the site to leave those thoughtful tributes safely was a restaurant table. Disgraceful and irreverent is the fact that after all this time there is still no fitting memorial on which they might appropriately be left.
I readily acknowledge that Fairlop was not operational during the Battle of Britain which of course was in 1940, as I well remember (see, I too make mistakes!) but it was certainly operational from September 1941 as David himself declares on his website, and I understand from the same source, that after that date it remained operational for most of the rest of the war. Over the subsequent four years, nine different squadrons were based on Fairlop and a great deal of major operational activity originated from the airfield throughout the war: activity which most certainly merits even a small permanent token of remembrance. The Battle of Britain was not the only wartime conflict in which the flyers of the R.A.F. fought and died, and if your son or husband was one of those courageous men, I think the actual whereabouts of his fate would hardly matter. The sacrifice made by these pilots still demands a permanent token of remembrance here at Fairlop, their home base.
Finally, I have been inside the clubhouse and I have seen and admired all the memorial displays which David Martin describes; displays for which I believe he was mainly responsible and for which he should be congratulated. I am also aware that this gentleman has been campaigning forcefully for many years for a memorial to be installed at Fairlop and has met with little except municipal apathy. In the face of this continued and intractable opposition, has he now given up, I wonder?