Saturday 30th November 2024
Over the years of knowing Club member Alan Pickford and the great interest he has in “The People’s Mosquito” (TPM), we thought it a good idea to try and feature “The Wooden Wonder” at this year’s Laying up Supper. It soon became obvious that our normal venues would be unsuitable for such an event, so we fell back on a one we had used for the Laying up Supper in 2009, the St Leonards Hotel Ferndown, when we had a speaker, who gave a talk on their adventures on the Peking to Paris Rally.
During WWII the St Leonards Hotel Ferndown was also the RAF Pilot Officers’ quarters. The pilots who stayed there signed the pillars supporting the ceiling. Sadly, only two autographed pillars still survive in what is now the Bar entrance hall, the rest have been painted over. The pilots not only signed but proudly wrote which country they had come from, and this shows the many countries from around the world which came to our aid. The hotel made a function room available to us and we set about finding a speaker to talk about the “The People’s Mosquito”. We were delighted when Paul Beaver, an aviation historian and past Editor-in-Chief of Jane’s Defence Weekly, agreed to talk about “The Secret Mosquito”. We then approached Alan to arrange for one of the WWII veterans who flew Mosquitos to be our guest of Honour for the evening. It was to have been Des Curtis from Poole, a Mosquito navigator with 618 Sqn, but sadly he passed away in the summer at the grand age of 100 years.
However, through the good offices of Andy Penn, we were able to approach his longstanding friend pilot Flt Lt George Dunn DFC LdH who, at 102 years of age is also an Ambassador for TPM project. George flew with Bomber Command –10 Sqn and 76 Sqn then moved on to Mosquitos in 608 Sqn, then 1409 Met.Flt. He completed forty-four ops during the Second World War. George flew his first tour in 1943, in Handley Page Halifax bombers, during one of the most intense periods of the bombing war. George wanted to attend but it seemed most unlikely as he was admitted to hospital with a broken shoulder. However, he was discharged from hospital just two weeks before the Laying up Supper and as he wanted to be part of our evening, and he came! You cannot keep those veterans down!!
We assembled at 4pm to meet George for tea, biscuits, WWI Trench Cake and WWII cake, made by my navigator in the way they would have been at the time without any rationed produce.
Following on from the tea party we made our way to the function room for the supper. The hotel staff had done a very good job setting the room up for us and as is customary (and necessary!) we had our own bar! The ladies, Julie Gardner, Diane Peaty, Sue Dimbylow, Dee Watson and Sue Grant did sterling work selling the raffle tickets in support of TPM and raised a splendid amount. Thanks must go to Brian Loades for his help in sorting out the computer problem that stalled the projector. When there’s a problem you always find Brian helping out.
We should like to thank TPM, Bill Rawles, Ahead 4 Healeys, St Leonards Hotel and the Club Members who so generously donated items for the Raffle. No generosity equals no Raffle. So once again thank you very much.
The sale of TPM pictures of Mosquitos was aided by George signing them and that made them even more special.
Before supper there was a short talk/presentation about the TPM project followed by Q&A. The after dinner talk was an interesting one by Paul Beaver about the Secret Mosquito covering its inception to some of the secret uses it was put to – by BOAC to fly spies in and out of Sweden in the bomb bay and returning with a cargo of a ton or two of ball bearings and to fly secret documents for PM Churchill all across Europe because of its low radar image and speed.
The evening ended with a round of appreciation for George who at 102 was just amazing. If I am half as sharp as George when I am only 90, I will be very pleased!!
