1974 August. St Mawgan and Yeovilton.

[Paul J]

A few more. A few years later and still toting my trusty Kodak Instamatic!!!  This time August '74. I went with a couple mates to the St. Mawgan show which was a mid week event back in the days. An overnight stop in the car on route was part of the nightmare to come!!! When we got there .... it was all over!!! WHAAAAAT!!!??? Yes we were a day late thanks to the driver who was adamant it was on the Thursday !! What could we do.. oh well the weather wasn't brilliant anyway and we made do with what we could see from the fence and crash gate. A nice surprise though was while we were hanging around said crash gate a Land Rover pulled up, officer chap gets out, says hi Lads as he went about checking the gates. Then said " If you wait a bit longer , a pair of Lightnings are on their way in and you should see them taxy past" Wow! It made up partially for the show being missed and we thanked him lots and without another word or anything telling us to clear off or else... he drove off!!  You definitely don't get that nowadays!!! So we hung on a bit and sure enough in they came. Classic run and break, in the circuit and landed .  Below is my meagre pic I managed...

I think this one was XP740:B. the other was XP762 ;C.

One of the few Canberras about. They were; WJ860,880 WH856, WK119,145.

 

Nice grey and white Nimrod. One of a few about on the day.

The other movements were the aboveand some show departures. Among them CAF Argus 10741, C-5A C-141, Danish Drakens, P-3C, Dutch Neppy and Atlantic, and Shack WL756.

 

 

So, after that we retired to a local watering hole sank a few Cornish ales and hit the road( Drink drive ws not that much enforced back then. We never got caught   and I wasn't driving at the time. Not for another year....)

Another very uncomfortable night stop in the car loomed..... Next morning, a tour around HMS Heron gave us these and a visit to the museum....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following this little escapade we headed back home. I was supposed tobe at work on the Friday(in a poorly paid, yes even in 1974, shop)!! Needless to say I got a lot of grief from the boss and all I lost was a days pay So my pay packet that week was about £15.00!!!!

 

Some of the  above pics I have enhanced to see what they look like. I still have the original scans in case.  any way, I hope you have enjoyed these and a glance of what I was up to....

 

See you again for more soon....

 

 

[cngaero]

Some nice nostalgic photos there Paul.

When you look at the variety of aircraft we had in use in 1974, it seems to be a very different world.

Thanks for sharing them.

[bootneck]

I was based at Yeovilton then Paul, although much of the time was spent away with the squadron on HMS Hermes.  When back at base, I used to enjoy walking around the various squadron lines, looking at the aircraft much of the time.  One of my favourites was Airworks/FRADU where the Canberra's and Hunters were. 

Nice and nostalgic photos.

 

Mike

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Thank you for the photo’s

[XL929]

Thanks very much for sharing these

[Britman]

Thank you for sharing Paul. Looking back in time as we do at our old photos it can be like peaking through the mist of time. First picture, is that a Galaxy in front of the Lightning? 

[Red Dot]

I love old photos with stories too

 

Brilliant

 

Andy

Edited December 19, 2017 by Red Dot

[Paul J]

22 hours ago, Britman said:

Thank you for sharing Paul. Looking back in time as we do at our old photos it can be like peaking through the mist of time. First picture, is that a Galaxy in front of the Lightning? 

thanks for comments. Yes that is a Galaxy. Acccording to my log for the day I noted one there among others types. All viewed from the fence.hedge or gate.  

Sorry about the yellowness of the pics;I think I may redo them as the ones posted were 'enhanced' but didn't look yellow until I posted them here.   The yellow edges to the pics is a result of the negative strip from wwhich thes e were done. My slide scanner machine is only geared up to do 35mm film. The negative carrier accomodates my old 126 film negs but only the lower 3/4 of the image becomes visible. So to counter that, I manually held the neg through the scanner and adjusted the position to suit.  Heaps of fun...