In the shadows of the few

After quite some time, this Sunday morning you find me propping up a table in Wetherspoons, having just made a “small English” disappear. Just in case you’re wondering, a “small English” consists of a hash broad, a slice of bacon, a pork sausage, a fried egg, and some baked beans. I think the normal version comes with toast. The large version doubles everything to the point that if you eat it all, you’re thoroughly disgusted with yourself. I’m not going to tell you how I know that.

It’s been a crazy weekend so far.

Quite apart from STILL being sick (which explains the relative paucity of content from me on YouTube, or the blog), I helped at my other half’s work summer barbecue yesterday.

Before anybody recoils in worry that I must have some sort of life threatening illness - sorry to disappoint. I just have a head full of snot, and can’t seen to make it go away. I’m blaming the youngest member of our household - she’s pretty good at sneezing in your face.

So... the work barbecue!

It was held in the grounds of the “Battle of Britain Bunker” near Hillingdon, in the south east of England - about half an hour from home. The bunker was the operational control room that orchestrated the defeat of the Luftwaffe in the summer of 1940. In the depths of the tunnels beneath the sunlit glade where we played garden games and drank too much cider, 70 years ago a small army of ladies manned telephones, and pushed wooden blocks across a map of the south east coast.

Of course the luftwaffe had no idea how we were able to intercept their aircraft so accurately - they knew we had built radio masts across the south east coast - “Chain Home” - but had no idea that the masts were an early step in the invention of “Radar”, or how accurate it was.

I’ve always loved the subsequent story - that continues today, several generations on. Parents across England tell their children at meal times to eat their carrots because they will help them see in the dark. My grandparents told me. I told our children. The story was spread during the autumn of 1940 - to cover up the invention of radar, and our ability to intercept aircraft at night. The crazy thing? The story worked far more successfully than anybody hoped.

So... fast forward 70 years and we drank cider, laughed, and had fun throughout a summer afternoon in the shade of a real Supermarine Spitfire, and Hawker Hurricane - mounted on posts in the middle of the lawns. I turned to my youngest daughter, who came with us for the afternoon, and reminded her that the average age of the pilots of those fighter planes was 20 years old.

Adjoined to the bunker system beneath our feet was a museum - telling a little of the story of the summer of 1940, and then the subsequent pushes in the years that followed. In a lull before everybody arrived for the barbecue I snuck over and had a wander around. I think perhaps the most affecting exhibit in the museum was a leather flying boot - cut from the deceased young pilot of a Hawker Hurricane that had crashed in the south east during the fighting. There’s something about personal artefacts that makes it more real than a smashed propeller, engine block, or piece of tailplane.

Something else that struck me about the aircraft is how small they were. I’ve never spent much time so close to them in the past. They really are no more than just enough fuselage and wing to strap guns to an engine, and get it airborne.

Above the bunker, a marble memorial remembers the significance of the buildings and their pivotal place in history. The engraving ends with Churchill’s famous words about the pilots that fought during the summer of 1940;

“Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few”.

We arrived home in the early evening and collapsed onto the sofas. I drank a pint of water, half-watched Morocco beat Canada at the World Cup, then retreated for an early night - the first early night in quite some time - and slept straight through until morning.

I can’t remember such a good night’s sleep - my late father in law used to call it “the sleep of the just”.

Ok... Wetherspoons is starting to get busier, as families arrive for breakfast. I’ve learned from experience to get here earlier rather than later. I should get going. Chores are waiting back at home.