Once upon a time, long, long ago, I dropped some leaflets off at the Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon, telling them about the Club and what we did. Last year they got in touch, and invited us to their “family weekend” at the end of August. This was a new show for us, and as it was only a week after Tilbury I didn’t expect much of a response, but sure enough, the forms started coming in, and we eventually had about a dozen entrants. I arrived on the Friday afternoon and met Mick Bone, who was banished to the rear of the museum as he had a civvy tent (in future, lie: of course it’s a military tent!) and shortly afterwards Rex Hunt arrived and we put our tents up in the rain. By the evening, we had about half a dozen vehicles, tents, and assorted signs and it started to look like a proper display. We were in the patch of grass to one side of the Spitfire and Hurricane fibreglass replicas, which was nice!

Saturday morning dawned, the sun shone and people started to arrive, as did our other entrants. Now, at most of the shows we attend, people are interested in the vehicles, but not at Hendon.... oh no, they want to see what’s inside the tents! On numerous occasions, I and several others were joined by uninvited “guests” who would just wander inside your 9x9 for a little look round. One poor unfortunate opened the tent flap whilst I was “busy” and hurried away, hoping his young son wouldn’t be psychologically scarred by the vision! (That field hospital bed earned its keep!) As well as us, there were medieval re-enactors, American civil war re-enactors, and as a favour to the museum, I got The London Fire Brigade Community Team down, along with the “hot fat” display. Oh yes, some WWII Yanks turned up as well, including Mike Timlett and his Jeep (and his new Yankee flat-top hairstyle). The museum has certainly changed in a big way, and several new buildings are going up as a result of new money being allotted. One such building which was 99% complete at the time is the “Milestones of Flight Building”, and after some careful badgering on my previous visits, I arranged us a sneaky preview on the Saturday evening (thanks Dave). It is amazing, and houses such aircraft as the Fokker D7, Me s s e r s c h m i t t 1 0 9 , Messerschmitt 262 and Harrier GR1, amongst others. Lots of picture taking ensued, but the Museum asked me not to use any until the building was open to the public, fair enough! We also got a free lunch ticket on both days (I had only mentioned this to the organisers as a joke, but they said yes).

On Sunday morning, Mike Allmey arrived in his RAF Ambulance, convinced it was a one day show! And the public, as ever, swarmed inside our 9x9s although some of them looked at the vehicles as well! Jeremy King kept the kids amused with his smoke machine, whilst Rex as usual, covered them in radios. We had a constant stream of visitors, and Anji (one of the organisers) came over to thank us, and invite us back next year. She said that the previous year the weekend pulled in 4,000 visitors; this year it was 6,000 and there was plenty of interest in the Land Rovers! The Museum is well worth a visit, especially as it has free admission, and to be honest, this was one of the nicest shows I’ve been to this year, it’s different, and there are no Germans running around waving guns! The area we were allotted was just the right size, and we put on a good display. Roll on next year, when I just might have a 127 Rapier on show! The Prologue... It is now 2004, and the Xmas fairy DID indeed deliver a 127 Rapier! Both new buildings are open to the public, so we can now use the pictures we took! There is a show commemorating D-Day this year… GO TO IT!

Report: Rob Short