Remembering those magnificent men in their flying machines

Glamorous hotbed of wealthy Sheffield socialites, controversial testing ground and, this week, the location of a new memorial. Rachael Clegg looks at the history of Firbeck airfield

TUCKED away between the Black Lion pub and a row of 60s-built houses in a small South Yorkshire village is a gem of social and military history.

Beneath what is now acre upon acre of agricultural land lies what was a glamorous 1930s airfield and RAF base used during the Second World War. And now, 80 years on, the site’s history will be officially recognised by the construction of a memorial.

The memorial is thanks to historians Chris Percy and Noel Ryan, aged 46, from Wath, who have been researching the airfield for the past four months.

Chris, 47, from Crookes, Sheffield, says: “Noel and I are in an airfield research group and were taking a walk one day by Firbeck airfield and spotted the concrete patch of land and said ‘That’d be a good place for a memorial’.”

The memorial, which honours all those who served at the former RAF Firbeck airfield, will be officially unveiled tomorrow and will stand as a testament to the airfield’s brief history.

The airfield was established in 1935, when a wealthy Sheffield stockbroker decided to transform Firbeck Hall, a Jacobean pile in Firbeck village, just outside Rotherham, into one of Europe’s most exclusive country clubs.

Cyril Nicholson, from Sandygate, Sheffield, invested £80,000 – almost £800,000 in today’s money – to create what was to be the one of the most desirable hang-outs of the 1930s. His club, simply known as Firbeck Hall Country Club, was completely decked out with a lush art deco interior, designed by Sheffield architects Hadfield Cawkwell Davidson.

It had a landscaped pool, complete with a water filtration system and a stunning art deco fountain. The club was so sought after that even Vogue published an entire Firbeck supplement featuring beautiful 1930s-clad women posing throughout the club’s vast grounds.

Nicholson didn’t do things by halves, and nowhere was this better manifested than his airfield.

And he didn’t just appoint anybody to design his airfield. He drew upon the talents of one of the most eminent pilots of the 1930s – Captain Tom Campbell-Black.

Campbell-Black was joint winner of the Midenhall-Melbourne Air Race in 1935 and he was also a very well-connected socialite.

It was through Campbell-Black that the Prince of Wales learned about Firbeck and would fly in for a visit in his Dragon aircraft, bearing the royal insignia. Other famous visitors included Sheffield University graduate and pioneering aviator Amy Johnson.

The airfield was also used by Sheffield Aero Club in 1938, which flew Tiger Moth and Gypsy Moth aircraft. The aero club was bankrolled, in part, by Sheffield steel manufacturers and attracted members such as Mrs L A K Halcomb – a woman pilot and instructor, an appointment that did not go unnoticed in the local newspapers.

‘Woman Flying Tutor for Sheffield Club’ read one headline. Clearly, this was big news and reflected a section of Sheffield society which is often overlooked – the wealthy, fun-loving beneficiaries of the city’s industrial economy.

“These would have been very well-heeled women indeed and very typical of the swinging 20s and 30s,” says Chris. “They were probably the daughters of wealthy steel magnates or industrialists.”

But Firbeck Airfield’s life as a landing ground of leisure was short-lived. By 1938 the club joined the ‘Great Flying Scheme’ under the instruction of the then air minister Sir Kingsley Wood.

It was a scheme aimed at recruiting a volunteer reserve for the RAF and, like most other aero clubs throughout the country, Firbeck was to take part.

One year later, war broke out and Firbeck was closed to civilian flying. By 1940 the land had been requisitioned by the Air Ministry under the Emergency Powers Act for military use.

From this semi-rural idyll, pilots conducted coastal patrols over the east coast and low-flying army convoy-spotting exercises.

And while the airfield wasn’t hugely significant to Britain’s war effort, it was a hot-bed of controversial warfare tactics, albeit ones that were never implemented.

It is likely that Firbeck was implicated in Winston Churchill’s proposed use of mustard gas spraying over German forces, at a time when an invasion of southern England was a possibility.

The plan was to fit British aircraft with equipment similar to that used for crop-spraying.

The aircraft would then fly close to and above the enemy fleet and spray them with the gas.

was a mustard gas storage facility planned at Rossington, Doncaster, and it was intended that 613 Squadron, which was based at Firbeck, would be involved.

In the end, mustard gas was never used in this manner against the Germans.

Firbeck was used as a satellite relief landing ground for an elementary training school and RAF Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, which remained the airfield’s purpose for the duration of the war.

In 1948, the hangar at Firbeck was taken down.

Today, all that remains of the airfield is a concrete patch.

But at least now, with the unveiling of the memorial, the airfield’s history will be commemorated.

The memorial unveiling at Firbeck will be carried out by Wing Commander John E Bates OBE tomorrow, accompanied by a full dedication service and a fly-past over the airfield.

Chocks Away

Firbeck airfield was constructed under the supervision of Thomas Campbell-Black in 1935.

In 1938 Sheffield Aero Club established itself at Firbeck with a collection of planes such as Tiger Moths and Gypsy Moths.

In 1939 the airfield was closed to the Sheffield Aero Club and in 1940 was requisitioned by the Air Ministry for military use.

The airfield was used as a base for duties such as low flying and reconnaissance patrols.

The base was used throughout the war as a training ground.

The hangar was dismantled in 1948.

The site of the airfield is now used for growing wheat.

From: http://www.eastwoodadvertiser.co.uk/news/remembering_those_magnificent_men_in_their_flying_machines_1_3703017

Article - Life’s great mysteries and teenage kicks (Doncaster)

SEVEN in the morning, and I am getting ready for school. From my bedroom window I see a front door opening an inch or two and a trembling hand gropes for the milk bottle left on the step. The same white hand swiftly replaces it with an empty. Then, routinely, the door closes quietly and that was almost all we ever saw of the lonely recluse who inhabited the house opposite ours

Once or twice as dusk settled we glimpsed her, in heavy ground-length black, walking slowly in the garden where the grass grew shoulder high, leaning heavily on a stick.

She never spoke. We learned nothing about her. Perhaps she did not hear us when we tried a a timid hello. I thought her a witch; mother said that was unkind, she had suffered great bereavement and I was to leave her be.

What a contrast to her neighbour, an Irishman and scrap metal merchant who got drunk every Saturday night and chased his screaming wife round the garden, brandishing one of those huge knives natives use to hack through jungles.

From the same elevation I could see an aerodrome, with windsocks and hangars; civil and military aircraft taking off and, occasionally, crash-landing. I watched Sir Alan Cobham’s flying circus, and begged in vain for five bob to pay for a flight over town in his big blue flying machine. Still, it cost nothing to watch the tiny silvery Hawker fighters drop flour-bag bombs on an unseen target.

In those far-off days an ancient Avro 504K biplane, WW1 vintage, with a tail skid, would trail a half-mile banner which declared to all who lived in Balby that Bile Beans Would Keep Me Fit. Or was it Beechams’ Pills? Or Carter’s little liver pills?

We enjoyed air displays but were shocked when a low-wing monoplane without warning turned over close to spectators. It all happened in a flash and I rushed down to our shed to tell Dad who didn’t believe me.

Then there were the BA Swallows and yellow Tiger Moths whose pilots skimmed our chimneypots and waved to me. Little did I know that those young men would one day fly the Spitfires and Hurricanes on more urgent missions.

Handley Page Hampden bombers would hit poles and swing round them. One memorable moment I watched as a man parachuted to safety

Mr North’s cows grazed the airfield. They were a regular sight as they were driven from the aerodrome farm to market on a Saturday morning and thoroughbreds from the Belle Vue stables did their morning gallops across the airfield on misty mornings.

Across the road was a sewage works. What went on there was disguised outside by an elegant mansion, all light and space, a temple to sanitation and public health, with great iron gates and a cupola, a pleasure dome.

From somewhere under the dome came a deep and endless humming sound never explained. From beyond the manicured lawns emerged a heavy-laden lorry dripping, nay groaning, with smelly stuff, a sort of end product, to be spread over the driver’s market garden, no doubt. The sign on the tailgate read “there goes another load of Huddlestone’s Fresh vegetables.”

Mr Huddlestone was not concerned with the finer points of horticulture.

Despite being told to clear off we children congregated round a mysterious tunnel which opened out into fields. Where it started nobody knew; the sewage works presumably. But we could guess. The dare was how far were you prepared to go into its furthest recesses and shout Oi. This tunnel had a habit of discharging great gushing gobs of water without warning. We must have been barmy but every kid loved a challenge.

My teenage years were the years of the blackout, rationing, stay-at-home holidays. Midnights spent in pyjamas in the Anderson shelter listening to the droning bombers, waiting for the siren to sound the all clear. Queuing an hour for wine gums; feeding my six Rhode Island reds; gleaning the Armthorpe wheat fields for grain; picking blackberries at Branton; begging chewing gum from the Yankie airmen; taking cheap paperbacks to searchlight and ack-ack batteries.

We kids never did anything, or go anywhere, without our bicycles. Trackless bus fares were only a penny and you could go out of St Sepulchre Gate for miles, stay on the bus and come safely home again, but if you had a bike, no matter how huge the machine nor how small the rider, you rode it.

Wooden blocks on the pedals helped, but some desperate kids developed a curious system whereby they put one foot reaching through the frame to the far pedal. Don’t ask me how it was done

Our world lay in a circle, Bawtry, Thorne, Balby, Sprotbrough, Warmsworth, Horseshoe Tunnel, Tickhill being on the perimeter.

Some places were out of bounds but you went there all the same. My parents never knew that Trevor and I pedalled to Newington to swim in the Idle. We simply stripped off, shielding our little bits from the sun, then straight into a cool current where passing weeds stroked our legs. There were hundreds of mothers and small children there on a hot summer afternoon. It wasn’t half cold to start with.

My parents never knew we used to crawl into what appeared to be a secret passage into the limestone at Hexthorpe. The little liars at Hexthorpe told us “Goes for miles ... all the way to the dungeons in Conisbrough Castle.”

We would believe anything like that.

Neither did they know that friendly drivers of little tank engines in the marshalling yards south of Doncaster would give you a ride on the footplate providing you told nobody. No thrill was greater than this. Some kids boasted they had been into Doncaster centre and back. A generation later and “Can I cab yer, mester?” was still heard on the Marshgate sidings.

We were all train spotters. The steam trains were worth spotting those days.

We stood on Hexthorpe bridge knowing what time to expect the streamliners to come scorching through. We heard the distant whistle, like horns of Elfland, far off and faintly blowing and the excitement mounted.

Finally, one of Gresley’s Pacifics, loco and coaches made by our fathers, seemed to explode out of the bridge. The driver gave us a brief imperious wave. Such pride we had… such envy! I could weep at the remembrance. It was our great reward after days on the cattle dock recording the diddy little workhorses.

We were taught by scholarly masters at the grammar school. A classical education for us? Latin prayers before dinner? Latin school song?

What were we doing there, the sons of railwaymen, coalminers, shopkeeers, learning Latin and Greek, French and German, logarithms, algebra? These schoolmasters relied on pain, often viciously inflicted as an aid to teaching. “French through the seat of the pants,” as one put it. Using those methods today they would have ended their careers in jail.

Mother could not believe it when I told her we all swam naked. “Teachers an’ all, Mam!”

“George,did you hear that? And I’ve knitted him a costume in school colours.”

Then, fortunately, our later teenage years were enlivened by National Service. An unforgettable, occasionally lamentable, but never regrettable, experience.

A railway warrant took us from Doncaster to Corsham via Bath.

We joined a crowd of spotty-faced youths in grey flannels and sports jackets, each carrying a cheap suitcase.

Marched from the station to six weeks’ imprisonment on HMS Royal Arthur, the burning days of sun bronzed us and fried us on a concrete quarter deck. Bawled at by a fatherless petty officer; lugging a useless rifle, its spout stuffed with Vaseline; a tin mug for dipping into a dustbin full of greasy cocoa laced with bromide. All the fags you could smoke at a tanner for 20.

Twenty foreign-speaking stoker mechanics from Glasgow and one naive Yorkshireman... sloping and ordering arms and doing royal salutes in our navy and whites.

We joined his Majesty’s Home Fleet knowing nothing and two years later, having seen the other half, in all its raw vulgarity, came out randy as the proverbial butcher’s bulldog with a taste for Old Jamaica, and thinking we knew everything.

There were unforgettable years in St George’s choir. Yet during all my teenage years, in church and school, at home or at play, we boys never discussed Jesus, the Christ. Was he human or divine? His virgin birth, death hammered onto a cross, resurrection, ascension, heaven.

These were the greatest mysteries. And we never spoke a word about them.

From: http://www.thestar.co.uk/community/nostalgia/life_s_great_mysteries_and_teenage_kicks_1_3576335