Afternoon tea at the Petwood

click photo to enlarge
I'm a northerner, born and bred. Consequently I have breakfast shortly after I rise - porridge and a cup of tea all year round for me - dinner is what I eat near noon, tea is a meal I consume around five o'clock (teatime) and supper is a small snack and more tea (cup of) an hour or two before bed. I often have a mid-morning cup of coffee or tea and a mid-afternoon cup of tea. The names I give to my mid-day meal and evening meal are not those used in the southern half of England however. In these parts, generally, what I call dinner is called lunch, and my tea is called dinner and is eaten later, perhaps around seven o'clock. Confusingly, in southern England an evening meal is sometimes referred to as supper. The southern way is to have afternoon tea of, perhaps, a cup of tea and a buttered scone to fill the hunger gap between lunch and dinner. These names are not regionally hard and fast because social class differences sometimes cause northern people to adopt the southern terminology. All of which is confusing enough for the natives; it must baffle visitors to our country.

One of my sons and his wife visited recently and while we were out one dull, damp and overcast day we stopped off at Woodhall Spa. In this large village is a memorial in the form of a breached dam that commemorates the members of the RAF's 617 Squadron, "The Dambusters", who gave their lives during the second world war. Since the end of that conflict thirty further members of the squadron have died and a new memorial has recently been unveiled that will commemorate them. Lincolnshire is sometimes known as "Bomber County" because of the large number of airfields that were created here during WW2. Today it continues to be the home of some of the RAF's largest airfields.

After a brief stroll round the streets and a viewing of the memorials we slipped into southern English mode and went to the Petwood Hotel for afternoon tea and cake. This former large house in the Edwardian Elizabethan-cum-Tudor "black and white" style, was built in 1905 for Grace Maple who became Baroness Von Eckhardstein and later Lady Weighall. In the 1930s it became a hotel and during the war it was requisitioned by the RAF as an officers' mess. The building contains much memorabilia from those days when pilots from 617 Squadron (who flew Lancasters) and 627 Squadron (who flew Mosquitoes) based at the newly created airfield of RAF Woodhall Spa spent much of their off-duty time there.

My main photograph shows afternoon tea being taken in one of the Petwood's large, panelled rooms that overlook the extensive gardens that were full of rhododendrons in flower. The smaller photograph shows a view of the building's south elevation seen from near the Round Pool.

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Keisby Wood's dark past

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Keisby Wood near Folkingham, Lincolnshire, is not all it seems. On the face of it this is a typical area of lowland woodland, somewhat neglected but with evidence of recent felling and thinning by the Forestry Commission. However, the visitor who walks the footpaths among the trees cannot help but notice concrete paths, sections of brick wall disappearing beneath the ivy and, every now and then, shattered concrete buildings, slabs resting on each other, broken edges facing skyward and all succumbing to a covering of leaf mould and moss. Today's photograph shows one such structure that is but a few years away from disappearing entirely under vegetation at which point it will have every appearance of a natural outcrop of rock.

What are these old buildings? The utilitarian nature of the shapes and materials together with the large areas of concrete covering the neighbouring fields did rather give the game away, but only after a little research when we got home was all revealed. They are relics of the second world war and later, all that remains of the airfield known as RAF Folkingham. This base became operational in 1940 and was used by the RAF and, later, by the United States Army Air Forces. Paratroops and manned gliders towed by transport aircraft flew from the base during the invasion of Europe and for later supporting actions.

After the war flying ceased and in 1947 the base was closed. BRM motors used the extensive runways for racing car testing. However, the Cold War saw a further military use for the site. In 1959 three Thor mobile Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs) were located there with an RAF unit. These nuclear missiles, each capable of destroying a large city and all its inhabitants, were ready for firing with 15 minutes notice and remained in position until 1963. The base closed when the IRBMs were replaced by the deployment of  Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) on the United States mainland and, in the UK, the RAF's V-Bomber force of Valiant, Victor and Vulcan aircraft equipped with the Blue Steel stand-off nuclear missile. Today the airfield is used for the storage of old agricultural vehicles, lorries etc.

As we walked through the woodland great tits and chaffinches flew on ahead of us. All was calm, quiet and peaceful. We were oblivious of the aircraft that flew from here seventy years ago and the missiles that sat on their launch vehicles, thankfully never needing to be fired. On our next visit we'll look a little more closely and view the sylvan scene in a rather different light.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm
F No: f8
 Shutter Speed: 1/40 sec
ISO: 500
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

High Flight

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Ask people to name a poem of the First World War and they are very likely to come up with something by Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke, Edward Thomas or "In Flanders Field" by John McCrae. It's a task that many people would have little difficulty in accomplishing, particularly those of a certain age who studied what were called, "The War Poets", at school. However, if the focus switched to the poets and poems of the Second World War then most people without a particular interest in poetry might struggle. I'd immediately think of my favourite, Henry Reed's "Lessons of the War: I. Naming of Parts", and perhaps its sequel, "Lessons of the War: II. Judging Distances, fine poems that speak obliquely about the experience of war. I'd also offer up "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, a work about the awe of piloting a single-seat fighter aircraft high above the earth, that has become a favourite of aviators across the world, and possibly the best known poem to come out of the experience of that conflict.

On a recent few days spent in central Lincolnshire we stopped at Scopwick Cemetery and looked at the war graves there. Many commemorate British and Canadian airmen who died in training at RAF Digby or were otherwise killed in the line of duty. There are also memorials to German airmen shot down in the vicinity. We moved on to our destination after taking a couple of photographs. However, the following day we read that J.G. Magee, the author of "High Flight" was among the dead at Scopwick, so we called in again on our journey home. We both knew his poem and recognised the first and last lines that are carved at the base of his memorial. This discovery on our part prompted me to find out more about Magee.

He was born to a U.S. father and British mother, both missionaries, in China. His education began at an American school in Nanking, but from 1931 to 1939, when the family moved to England, he was educated in English schools including Rugby School. In 1938 he won that institution's poetry prize. He was an admirer of another Rugby pupil, Rupert Brooke, the poet of the First World War, who had also won the school's poetry prize in 1904. In 1939 Magee went to the United States and the following year he earned a scholarship to Yale University, but instead chose to join the Royal Canadian Air Force. In 1941 he transferred to Wales to train on the Spitfire aircraft. It was here that he wrote "High Flight". Shortly afterwards he went to RAF Digby and No. 412 (Fighter) Squadron, RCAF. On 11th December 1941, Magee's aircraft and a training aircraft collided in cloud at 1400 feet, resulting in his tragic death at the age of 19.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 58mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Railings and sacrifice

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The casualties of the Second World War were many. Tens of millions of civilians died, as did millions serving in the armed forces. Cities, towns and villages were destroyed and damaged. Historic buildings, houses and workplaces fell to the indiscriminate blast of artillery shell and bomb. But for the populations under attack or occupation these were only some of the privations to be suffered. Food was in short supply. Every day the best and the worst of friends and neighbours was exposed by the stress of war. And unexpected small changes in routines, and in the appearance of surroundings, daily told of the struggle that was taking place across much of the world.

In Britain, from the outbreak of war, everyone carried a gas-mask. Sand bags were placed in locations that would be susceptible to blast damage, and lines of tape criss-crossed windows to counter the deadly flying shards that they would produce if a bomb burst nearby. If this didn't remind everyone that there was a war on, the arrival, in 1940, of gangs of men to cut down the iron railings that bordered house gardens, parks, public buildings and churches, certainly did. This measure was taken to increase the supply of the metal needed to make the weapons necessary to fight the war. It also had the psychological effect of making everyone believe that they, and their communities, were "doing their bit." However, one effect of this measure was to change the face of Britains towns and cities. Selected historic buildings were exempted from the order, but elsewhere the railings fell to the saw and blowtorch like wheat to the scythe. Towns and cities must have looked denuded. In the 1950s an urban myth went around that Winston Churchill had taken this action solely for the sake of morale, and that the railings had actually been dumped in the sea at Land's End. It was never true, but many believed it!

The church of St Peter, Fleetwood, Lancashire, a building by the noted architect, Decimus Burton, had its churchyard railings taken away during the war. Old photographs show them to be fine, sturdy shafts with foliate tops. For the six decades after the end of the war the church stood with only a low wall and the filled sockets of the old railings between its churchyard and the surrounding streets. Then, in 2005, as part of a wider refurbishment, new railings based on the original pattern, were installed. They look a fine sight, and give a visual "lift" to the building. I took this photograph of the church from one of the three corner entrances to the triangular churchyard. The remaining Victorian lantern holder seemed a good frame for the building, and I used a wide zoom lens at 22mm (35mm equivalent) to show the railings wrapping round the site. The camera was set to Aperture Priority (f8 at 1/160 second), ISO 100 and -0.7EV.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen