Gate Guards

Tornado F3 ZH552 , also see Post#212 .

Another one from up north , Phantom FGR2 XV415/E close to the main camp main gate on the Boulmer to Longhoughton road . Difficult to photograph through the fence but worth stopping to see if you are in the area .

These are Outside Shrewsbury Castle by the regimental museum. It was suprising to find that while still a kid in 1968 assembling airfix models of 25 pounders they were still in service !

A 25 pounder was probably last fired in anger on 17th July 1972 at the Battle of Mirbat, Oman.

What I find upsetting about so many gate guardians - be they aircraft, guns, vehicles or whatever - is that once they've been put in position, nobody seems to care about them any more and, consequently, they deteriorate into extremely scruffy mementos of what they symbolised.

Of course, in the olden days, it was something that 'jankers wallahs' could be gainfully employed on ... keeping them nice and shiny.

These days, these 'guardians' make very sad reminders of what was a proud item.

The gate guardian outside the Guard Room at RAF Binbrook in summer of 1974. I spent a blissful, and scorching. week there on ATC Summer camp - memories rows of shiny 5Sqn and 11Sqn and LTF Lightnings on the apron outside the hangars, a brace of RAF Chipmunks flown in for ATC AEF sorties (with memories of watching loads of disused airfields passing by underneath), plus assorted other military aircraft types visiting Binbrook that week, including an RAF Belfast, RAF Andover, and RNLF F104's amongst them. All topped off with the chance to sit in one of the Lightnings....life didn't get much better than that for a teenage aviation enthusiast..

This monster discourages thieves at a small industrial estate at Brierly Hill in the Black Co untry

With no external appendages the lines are graceful and smooth. A tribute to Hawker.