The John Griff Column: Pride in place from further afield…

If you are a reader of these musings on a regular basis – for which I thank you – you might understand that I have a keen love of this county and in particular its heritage and history. This is not to say that I am a historian however. Instead, I have a kind of stakeholder fascination for what took place in the county of my birth over the years, coupled with a pride for more contemporary events – some in my own lifetime.

I think it is both healthy and important to have a sense of origin. I have found my own to be both healthy and useful for comparative purposes – which is why, just a couple of weekends ago I found myself hugely engaged with a historic location and inside it, a historic exhibit.

The Brooklands Museum in Weybridge is noteworthy for both its pioneering motoring and aviation connections. Britain’s first ever Grand prix took place there on its then unique, purpose-built concrete banking. A variety of aircraft manufacturers built their products inside the estate and although it never flew from there, a significant portion of all Concorde airframes were produced in the BAC factory at Brooklands before being transported to Filton near Bristol for final assembly. Brooklands was truly at the cutting edge of technological innovation during this time.

Today much of the concrete banking still exists, albeit that in more modern times the local authority cut comprehensively through it to establish access roads for the offices and shops which have long since replaced the aircraft factories and pits facilities. The ghosts of Brooklands’ heritage still exist though, which is why Lois, her son Elliot and I went to see the centenary celebrations of that first Grand Prix. Obviously there were plenty of historic racing cars from down the years on view. Some grumbled and roared their way around a temporary track which had been laid down in the extensive car park of the neighbouring Mercedes-Benz World – part museum, part car dealership.

Away from the cars we discovered a number of notable civilian and military aircraft, including a Concorde and a Harrier jump jet. Inside a very dark hangar we found a silent example of Britain’s wartime ingenuity. Built at Brooklands in 1939, the Wellington bomber N2980 (nicknamed R for Robert), had been lost in a training accident, brought down by bad weather and ditching on the surface of Loch Ness on New Year’s Eve, barely 2 months after construction. One member of the crew was lost when he acted on a mistakenly heard order to bale out. Staying with the aircraft, the remainder of the crew walked down a wing, clambered into a hastily inflated life raft and watched as the aircraft gently sank into the waters beneath them. R-Robert remained all but forgotten until a salvage campaign brought the aircraft up in 1985 with the recovered wreckage being donated to the Brooklands Museum. Volunteers spent over 100,000 hours painstakingly reconstructing the aircraft, which has become the centrepiece of its collection. Today it is protected from the elements, it’s twin propellers still bent from the moment it ditched on the Loch, in testimony to the skill of its pilot. Standing underneath the huge aircraft, I felt it – her – to be almost alive once more, albeit sleeping. Maybe that’s just me.    

As a boy I recalled being told that a number of Wellington bombers had been sent – or flown – to Sywell Aerodrome for mechanical work or repair to their then revolutionary lattice and fabric construction, with much of the work being carried out – of course - by skilled female fitters. Brooklands Aviation had expanded its pilot training and flying operations into Sywell in 1933, and at the outbreak of WW2 the business relocated there from Weybridge. Maintenance and aircraft construction was a logical fit for the business in Northamptonshire. I was amazed to learn that over 1800 Wellingtons were repaired at Sywell during World War 2, with about 100 (a third of the fleet) of the larger Mk2 Lancaster bombers being built there on a top secret production line.

Our trip to Brooklands hadn’t started out being about aviation, but as I left the site I imagined the wartime scenes, resolving to revisit the excellent Sywell Aviation Museum which looks out over the Aerodrome. Part of the nation’s war effort and a monster retrieved from Loch Ness, R-Robert also points to Northamptonshire’s role in that same effort. And of that I am massively proud.