TO THE PUBLIC
“The general public does not have a very frequent opportunity of seeing the Royal Air Force at work, so the annual ‘At Home’ in commemoration of the Battle of Britain not only serves to keep that historical epic in your minds, but enables you to see for yourselves how the Royal Air Force functions in peace time conditions.
The Royal Air Force cordially welcomes you to make yourselves at home and, when in doubt about any point regarding the flying or the static exhibitions, ask – not a policeman – an airman.”
The invitation is quaint. Presumably a family member had attended. The well-preserved programme, in which the above is the introduction, of the “At Home” looked to be of some interest. It struck a topical chord since over recent months television has been interested again in the Battle of Britain, stimulated by its recent 70th Anniversary. For a while, archive film of the action produced a number of new insights into the episode.
One typical result was a television documentary on the work that women pilots carried out in the field of military aviation during World War II. My early years were spent living close to the airfield of Hamble, near to Southampton, a grassy field with no runway and few pretensions. Oddly, a single-track railway line, linked with an oil installation on Southampton Water, cut off a corner of the airfield, the corner being sufficiently generous to encourage a number of pilots over the years to misjudge the landing and forfeit their undercarriage. About fifteen minutes of this documentary referred to the women aviators who were based at Hamble and who flew aircraft across the country to deliver them to stations more strategically important to the nation’s defence than Hamble. These aircraft were usually ‘repairs’ and Hamble apparently repaired 2,575 of them between 1939 and 1945! Since my mother served as secretary to the administration of this grassy field, the documentary was of considerable interest. Here the recollection is perhaps incidental, but it does perhaps explain a wider interest in airfields whose heyday was during the Battle of Britain.
The “At Home” programme provided the running order for a flying display held at the Royal Air Force Station, North Weald, on Saturday, 17th September, 1949. It detailed both the flying and the static displays, comprising bombs, guns and cannons, flying clothing, parachute packing and so on. Starting at 2.00 pm, the flying programme was to last nearly four hours. It was headed by a fly past of Spitfires from Numbers 601 and 604 Royal Auxiliary Air Force Squadrons. An aerobatic display was included. This was followed by a fly-past of Handley Page Hastings in formation, de Haviland Vampire jets, Meteros and the Hornet aircraft, a derivative of the Mosquito.
Perhaps most notably at 3.20 pm a television outside broadcast commenced. This opened with Richard Dimbleby interviewing “well-known personalities”, which included Air Chief Marshal Sir Guy Garrod and Group Captain Douglas Bader. Then followed an “operational ‘take-off’ by No. 604 Auxiliary Squadron intended to repel an imaginary attack on the airdrome” and a “Tiger Moth and Chipmunk aircraft demonstration with Wynford Vaughan Thomas broadcasting from the Tiger Moth”. Some jet Meteors attacked an “Ack-Ack” Gun Site and some paratroopers dropped from a Dakota. Various other entertainments filled the remaining television time. The outside broadcast lasted 50 minutes in total.
After the broadcast, and before the afternoon concluded, further fly-pasts took place; Photographic Reconnaissance Spitfires; a Percival Prentice trainer, with aerobatics; Avro Ansons; aerobatics with Tiger Moths; and more Spitfires and more aerobatics. After some gliding and a few ground based demonstrations by physical training teams, the “At Home” was scheduled to finish at about 6.00 pm.
All this would have provided a spectacular show for the period and BBC television played its part, remarkably. Of course, television had yet to parade the Queen’s Coronation in 1953, for many the first memorable televised occasion. More mundanely perhaps for those with long memories, the first episode of The Lone Ranger (and Tonto?) was televised two days before the North Weald display while Come Dancing, when it was simply a vehicle for a regional dance competition, and not strictly, was still to make its debut nearly two weeks later. At this time outside broadcasts were unusual. The fact that North Weald had been selected for one of these adventures, as the subject of such a transmission, emphasised the importance of the airfield show. It was one of the very early such broadcasts post-war and from the platform of the Tiger Moth, it would have presented both an electronic and a logistical challenge.
It is generally credited that one of the first live outside broadcasts after the end of WWII also had a flying theme, covering the first flight of the Brabazon aircraft. This plane was conceived as a luxurious, long-range, passenger plane. It is difficult now to conceive the size of the plane. The wing-span was 230’, or 35’ more than a Boeing 747; the fuselage was 177’ long. The date of first flight was 4th September 1949, less than two weeks before the North Weald “At Home”. Filton was the site of this debut and large crowds gathered for the flight, which was captured on film, the film being eventually recovered from its resting place in a shed. Although a second Brabazon was commissioned, it was soon realised that a large, slow aircraft, when compared to the new, expected jet airliners, carried little economic justification. It had a short life and in October 1953 all development of the Brabazon ceased. Surely hastening this closure was the first test flight of the Comet jetliner in July 1949, to be introduced to passenger service in May 1952.
So the “At Home” at North Weald Air Station, just after the first Brabazon flight and Comet introduction, must have been one of the first truly live BBC outside broadcasts after the war. The display was a blend of the pre-war and conventional Tiger Moths and a confident future Royal Air Force, represented by Meteor and Vampire jet aircraft. It was also an exciting time for an United Kingdom aircraft industry faced with the challenge of providing faster passenger transport.
Reminding the Museum at North Weald of the “At Home”, a transcript of the programme was found in an orderly file. The intention of the museum is now to write to the BBC to enquire about remaining footage of the filming.