CROYDON AIRPORT

I have enjoyed This England for many years now and found “The Sky’s The Limit” in this latest edition most interesting. There is mention of Winston Churchill in the first piece and also in the article about Croydon Airport.

I thought readers might find the attached piece from page 4 of the Daily Mirror, dated 30 June, 1914, of interest. Incidentally, page 3 carried the story of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand that took place on 28 June.

David Parker, Kirdford, West Sussex

I was so interested to read Christopher Rudd’s article about this because I lived at the back of it and was always fascinated with planes. When they came in to land, they flew just over our rooftop so you could see the pilots!

I used to go to the fence at the back of the airport with some friends

(aged nine) during the war and talk to the Spitfire and Hurricane pilots who had to stand next to their aircraft for long periods to be ready to take off when they got the signal.

Security was fairly lax in those days, which is why we weren’t moved away. They used to get us to buy lemonade for them as it was a long way from the shops and they were far from the main part of the airport. They were such brave young men and when I asked, when they returned from a mission, “Where’s Ginger?”, they replied, “Oh, he bought it,” meaning he was dead.

We just accepted it in those days, as we did when our school friends went home and found it in ruins with no sign of their parents. We wore gas masks a lot of the time, which were slightly more invasive than face masks!

It was a busy little airport before the war and drew a lot of attention bombing-wise during it, so our streets were full of anti-aircraft guns and the skies with barrage balloons. So we had V1s and V2s raining down on us and spent most of our time in air-raid shelters with no light.

After the war, my Civil Service father was posted to Berlin as part of the civilian occupation, and I was by then sixteen. At least I was able to see what a good job our brave boys had done to their capital city.

Pamela Plumb, by email