Mission to restore ATC hall
Airmen and women of the future are parading in a hall that’s becoming a home to history.
Once a week 26 cadets from Number 48 Squadron, the Stratford Air Training Corps, line up inside their corrugated iron clad headquarters in Fenton St.
But on all the other days a team of volunteer workers, led by former merchant seaman and retired crane driver Laurie Gooch, are working on a slow transformation of the hall.
In his retirement project Gooch is assisted by artist and retired cabinetmaker Paul Burton, who is turning the ceiling and walls into a gallery of vintage war planes, and Michael Smith, who is volunteering between jobs with plywood cut-outs.
A scene at one end of the hall has British bi-planes, while on the other side are German aircraft, including the Red Baron’s Fokker plane.
A diorama of a World War II jungle scene is taking shape around a tiny operations hut Gooch and Smith are building.
‘‘It will look like it was back in the jungle, with Corsairs painted on the wall and a crew and the pilot in his uniform,’’ Gooch said.
So far, the renovation has cost about $67, said Gooch, who described his rank as ‘‘GDB’’, or general dogsbody.
Paint for the murals came from the Stratford transfer station and other materials and people’s time were donated.
‘‘I’m very good at scrounging,’’ Gooch said.
Inside the hut will be a memorial to some of the airmen who came from the Stratford district, he said.
An honours board with their names will be installed, and a uniform worn by fighter pilot Allan Cosford during WWII will be displayed on a mannequin.
‘‘With this uniform and these ribbons he [Cosford] was flying in the Pacific theatre. But we found it on a hanger from a rather prestigious French hotel so maybe he went from Paris to the UK at some stage and flew up in France,’’ Gooch said.
The items came from the Stratford RSA, which closed in March 2017.
The ATC provides militarybased leadership, personal, operational and aviation training for young people aged 13 to 18.
The old hall was originally an army hall but was relocated to its present site in 1943.