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Written Records

August 2003

At long last the summer holidays have arrived. I know that is not good news for many of you but for my wife and I it means that we have time to get reacquainted! And I have time to do some serious website work. See the What's New page for hyperlinks to new stuff.

The month of July seemed to have lasted barely a week as life both at work and play was so hectic. The highpoints were the Church Fete, the Open Gardens, the A&H Barbecue and a trip to the Newmarket Races. The Fete was a wonderful event this year as it was really three events in one. Firstly, the traditional fete on the green in front of the church with a few stalls, a few games and a few visitors. I still haven't won anything on the bottle stall or the tombola or ...... Secondly there was a marvellous display of Quilts by Alveva Quilters. These ladies just keep getting better. Visitors came from as far away as Northumberland, okay, they were on holiday in Norfolk but they had made a point in coming from their holiday location. Thirdly, and new for this year, a display of traditional crafts was held at the Methodist Hall. This was organised by the new spinners and weavers branch of the Quilters and included traditional dying, spinning, rug making techniques, sugar craft demonstrations, pottery, painting, card making etc, etc. It was a fabulous addition to the Fete especially as the Methodist Hall has a kitchen were teas and home-made cakes could be purchased and enjoyed. All involved in these three events deserve great praise. I sincerely hope it was worth their time and that they will come back again next year.

For a couple of years now we have been asked to open our garden as part of the Open Gardens weekend. This year we gave in. The weather was great, the sun shone, the birds sang and Sue made home-made lemonade for the visitors. Each visitor buys a ticket which they have to show at each garden and about 15 gardens were open around the village so it can take several hours to do the walk around them all. We had a lot of visitors, which was probably because we had 'opened' for the first time, and we met some interesting people including a gentleman who had served at RAF Feltwell toward the end of WW2. He and his wife have retired to a village about 30 miles away and when they saw the event advertised in the newspaper the temptation to visit was too great. You may be wondering why I haven't named the gentleman, well, I forgot to ask him! A cardinal sin for someone in my position I know and I am duly shamefaced.

The A&H Barbecue was held on the 18th July this year and was a well attended event with good weather which was a relief to yours truly as I was doing the cooking. 40 burgers and 40 sausages on a small family grill is no mean fete I'll tell you especially with the wind in the wrong direction and eyes watering so badly with the smoke that you can't even see the barbecue let alone the food! Still, nothing was so badly burned that it couldn't be eaten and I still didn't win anything on the raffle.

My trip to the Newmarket Races wasn't exactly a village event so I'll not say much except that I lost £1.60 on the night and had a great time especially listening to Joules Holland at the end.

For those of you interested in such things I bought a Canon PowerShot S45, 4 megapixel, digital camera which, as you will see from the new Stained Glass pages (now there's a spoiler), takes a terrific photo. Let me know what you think.

Email items of interest last month include the news that the 75 Squadron has been granted planning permission to erect a memorial in the village. They have now to raise the money before finding a builder. This arrived from John Milne: 'While looking for some information on RAF Feltwell, I was amazed to find the very good write-up on Harry Lawson. I would like very much to be put in touch with Harry's grand daughter or his son in law. I have at least one photo of him in his flying kit along with pictures of Hugh Hardie and Jimmy Smith. I, as a single engine pilot navigator (getting Bomber Command experience) and was crewed up with them at an OTU in Moreton in the Marsh. We were posted to Feltwell as a crew. At Feltwell, along with Bill Van Exan, a Canadian, we were given Richard Rishworth as captain with Van Exan as second pilot. After our third op. I was sent on temporary attachment to Linton from which I made six trips to Murmansk on Lancasters. It was my misfortune to be one of the relatively few aircrew having a good knowledge of spherical trig., something that was essential in the high latitudes where one must use astral navigation rather than dead reckoning. If it were not for this posting, I also would have been one of the casualties.

There are a number of inaccuracies in Harry's biography particularly relative to the crash. The crash site was not to far from the aerodrome and just a matter of a few feet inside a farmer's field on the road in the opposite direction to the village.

It is rather ironic that I came a cropper at Feltwell in 1943 although it was not my station. I was a pilot in 138 Special Duties Squadron and had been rather badly shot up even before a meeting with an Me 110 night fighter. That ended my flying career.'

Having forwarded this to our resident RAF Historian, Dan Engle, John writes back, 'The only thing I remember about his (Harry Lawson) family background is that he was from Macclesfield and that his father was a butcher. He was a very jovial person and very well liked. His one failing as a tail gunner was that he smoked in the turret and it became necessary to conduct a search to avoid having a beacon at the tail of the aircraft.

I think Rishworth made a low dragged up approach to avoid unduly stressing his failing engine. He probably clipped the trees and landed more or less flat. As I mentioned, the plane ended up just inside the field at a point where there was a gap in the hedge. It wasn't hard to find when I went to see the site some weeks later.

When I pranged at Feltwell, I was with 138SD Squadron I was flying a Lysander on an op to Holland. I was rather badly shot up by ground fire but was only slightly wounded. I was caught by an Me 110 nightfighter but managed to get down at Feltwell purely be chance. I have no memory of the event or the op itself and the only thing I have ever been able to learn came from others. I was communicating with the TR 9 when I was within range but there was no official record kept, or that I could find, of what was said. My landing was a disaster because half the undercart collapsed and I cartwheeled. Again, I could find no official record or a crash report. The crash report would have been filed by 138 Squadron and its records have enormous gaps. When the Squadron was disbanded (any Squadron), I don't think the packers were all that careful of what they packed or what they disposed of. John is 87.

There were no new members this month. I must thank Vic Redmond for the copy of his original RAF Feltwell Golf Club Card - shame about the handicap, Vic! (Find out what it was by visiting the site)