Public asked to share their RAF stories
A new website and companion app are celebrating the history of the Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force Museum has created a free app allowing people to share their experience of the service.
RAF Stories ( rafstories.org), launched to mark the RAF’s centenary, features video and audio interviews with former personnel, whose experiences date from the Second World War to the present day.
They are accompanied by transcripts of the interviews and in many cases maps of the locations mentioned, information about the technology used or photographs of the people whose stories are told.
Karen Whitting, director of content and programmes at the RAF Museum, said: “We’re delighted to announce the launch of RAF Stories, an innovative resource that highlights the rich and personal links that the public have with the RAF. This online community space will showcase how the RAF family reaches far beyond its servicemen and women.”
Members of the public can help the website to grow by sharing their own stories and the stories of loved ones using the free RAF Stories app, which is available on both Android and iOS.
You don’t need particular technical skills to make the recordings, and there are warm-up and dry-run sessions to help you practise.
The stories will also feature in exhibitions at the RAF Museum’s London site, which launched its centenary redesign on 30 June.
Actor and singer-songwriter Minnie Driver is among those taking part in the project. As she learned when she appeared on Who Do You Think You Are? in 2013, her father, Charles Ronald Driver, was a gunner in the RAF during the Second World War. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal for bravery in the Battle of the Heligoland Bight, but suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after his best friend was killed in the fighting.
In a series of interviews with historian Joshua Levine on the RAF Stories website, Driver talks about her father and praises the RAF for supporting him as he struggled with his mental health.
“They never abandoned him,” she says. “They always took him back. They took care of him.”
Another interviewee, Candida Adkins, discusses her mother Delores Teresa Moggridge, known as Jackie, an Air Transport Auxiliary pilot who flew more than 1,500 aircraft during the war and received the King’s Commendation for Services in the Air. One of Moggridge’s first jobs was secretly working as a radar operator during the Battle of Britain.
“My mother actually watched the Battle of Britain as little dots on the screen,” Adkins says.
Another participant, Stan Holmes, describes how he served as a meteorological air observer in No. 251 Squadron: “I recall printing off the forecasts and then cycling over to the operations room to hand ’em in.”
RAF Stories is part of the RAF Museum’s RAF Centenary Programme, which is supported by funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The RAF was founded on 1 April 1918.
This will showcase how the RAF family reaches far beyond its servicemen and women