Today I was playing bowls, and we are lucky we have a lovely bowls club in quiet surroundings. We live near Goodwood and Shoreham Airport is not far away, and we often have single engine aircraft flying overhead either practising, or maybe pleasure flights, and I do not know why today was different - perhaps it was the peace and the beautiful morning, but as two aircraft flew over in formation, memories of the Battle of Britain came back, I was a young school girl then, and remember quite clearly the aircraft flying overhead - we lived near Biggin Hill Airport, and could watch from the top of our Anderson air-raid shelter some of the dog fights which took place over that area. The memory of the ominous drone of the enemy aircraft also came to mind, and I suddenly felt quite sad for all the young men who died, and then, when all had gone quiet, out the blue sky we saw the magnificent Red Kite, silently gliding his way over the countryside, and I personally gave thanks for this country and our way of living.
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Vivid memories of V-bombers, taking off from Leuchars, just a few miles from St Andrews, where I was a student; and when I was teaching an evening class at RAF Marham in Norfolk, they (and most of my students) were deployed to Ascension Island, the jumping-off point for the Falklands conflict. A fantastic aircraft, one of the AVRO family, it's very close to the heart of local people many of whom worked at BAe Woodford, formerly AVRO Aviation. Now they are about to build a huge housing estate on the land where great planes like these were designed, built and tested. 
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