Making of a legend...
inspector. They had been down for posterity by his son.
George recalled: “The Chief Test Pilot for the Spitfires was Alex Henshaw, a very brave man who became even more renowned after the war.
“He would take the freshly built aircraft up and attempt to pull the wings off. Often nuts and bolts or indeed tools would have been left inside during assembly and would sometimes hit Henshaw on the head or legs as he threw the aircraft around.
“This somewhat annoyed him, so he would climb to a good height and throw the objects out, aiming at the factory roofs.
“By the time they landed they were doing a fair speed and would punch through the roof. Fortunately they usually could be heard coming.
“He did a fair amount of damage despite being ordered to desist. He was not a man to be told what to do and the company’s difficulty in getting volunteers to test newly built aircraft – which he was brave enough to do – enabled him to get away with a lot.
“He also had a habit of flying over written sun bathing workers on the airfield at nought feet, leering out of the cockpit whilst they tried to dig a hole.
“He, however went too far one day when the exiled King of Norway came on a official visit to the factory and Henshaw was to give a flying display. At nought feet he flew between two rows of buildings with scant clearance on either side and just cleared the raised dais on which was the King’s party.
“The King passed out and even Henshaw was in trouble. The assembled workforce hadn’t laughed so much in years.”
Yet the factory’s start could not have been more rocky, and not just because it was the target of numerous Luftwaffe raids.
Not only was the factory built behind schedule and over budget, Lord Nuffield quickly found that building Spitfires was a lot more complicated that knocking out motor cars.
In its early days the factory became chaotic and suffered from poor industrial relations.
The delays and problems are now believed to have resulted in fewer front line fighter squadrons being equipped with Spitfires in time for the Battle of Britain than expected.
This is why, some historians claim, the outcome was far less certain than it might otherwise have been. It took the arrival of the dynamic newspaper tycoon Lord Beaverbrook to get production up to required levels.
By the end of 1940, Castle Bromwich had developed world-beating expertise in building metal-skinned aircraft, an asset that was to be tapped by sheet metal manufacturer Fisher and Ludlow which turned the plant over to manufacturing car body panels.
It has been a centre of car production ever since, under the ownership first of British Leyland, then Jaguar.
In its time, it has produced Mini sub-frames and bodies for Rovers and Jaguars and painted Triumph TR7 sports car bodies.
BL had planned to shut Castle Bromwich in 1980 but then pulled off one of the biggest U-turns in industrial history by pumping in some £100 million to modernise its facilities.
Under Jaguar’s ownership, the plant was regarded as being underutilised but by 1989 it was being used to assemble the Jaguar S Type, the predecessor to the highly successful XF.
In 2005 Jaguar’s then owner, Ford, announced that car building was to end at Browns Lane in Coventry after 50 years and production consolidated at Castle Bromwich.
A massive redevelopment of Birmingham site was needed accommodate the XJ and XK lines.
The project saw 2,500 workers from 120 contractors working round the clock and saw the removal of more than 9,000 cubic yards of soil – the size of a Channel ferry – being dug out and removed.
Amazingly, the first cars came off the new tracks only six weeks after Browns Lane built its last car.
The airfield itself closed and in 1960 the site was housing.
The development of the Castle Vale estate began in 1964 and was completed in 69. However, the key role the site played during Britain’s darkest days is remembered in RAF related street names. the to in 1958 sold for