My Birthplace - Now a Museum!

As we were in Shropshire anyway and since I've not knowingly been in the county since 1957 or so, we decided to visit the RAF station where I was born. Actually, my birth certificate doesn't quite know where I was born, Staffordshire or Shropshire? Peculiarly, it mentions both. I have a feeling that RAF Cosford has been the subject of changing county boundaries over the years.{g}

It is still a working RAF base. It's the centre for training in Aeronautical Engineering, a great RAF tradition, which has given Britain a rich heritage of innovation in flight. And it also houses one of the two RAF Museums, the other being at Hendon in London. It is free to enter and my family were sweet enough to allow me to indulge my love of planes (and homesickness for the RAF) by coming along with me.

When people ask me where I grew up, I always tell them, 'The RAF'. Those who were also born and bred in one of the Forces smile knowingly. Those who weren't, persist, 'Yes, but where?' 'All sorts of places,' I answer. I believe there is also an RAF accent. People can't quite place me from my accent, but a man on a bus once asked me if I'd grown up in the RAF based on hearing me speak. He'd guessed correctly. {g}

An RAF education was an interesting one, too! Its products seem to have certain common characteristics. We tend to have great general knowledge, a wide vocabulary and understanding of International Relations and World History. We also tend to have appalling spelling, terrible Maths skills and big gaps in cultural literacy. The deficit areas were mostly those which relied on systematic teaching. And those who live abroad for large chunks of their childhood tend miss out on certain shared childhood experiences.

I've learned a lot about myself, and why I am the way I am, from meeting other Forces kids. The RAF seems to have a particular, distinctive childhood experience. Army kids tended to move with their whole regiment to new bases or new countries and so didn't leave their playmates behind very often and Navy kids tended to stay put, but missed their fathers for months at a time. In the RAF, we moved individually as families. And so did everyone else. Which meant that we could never be quite sure who would be living next door when we woke up each day and who would be sitting next to us in school each new morning.

I wouldn't change a day of it, though. I loved that period in my life. It was, strangely, the most settled period of my childhood, being *predictably* uprooted and *routinely* losing friends and neighbours and having to re-establish relationships.
I was so excited to drive through those gates!

One of the hangars was for WW2 aircraft and the other, larger one was dedicated to the planes of the Cold War. The kids were very good for me, posing beside aircraft when I asked them!It can't have been the most exciting day in their lives!

'Yes, Daddy, I'd love to go to the Cold War Exhibition with Mum!'The Vulcan Bomber (below), the stuff of my childhood dreams. And nightmares. A beautiful plane, innovative and gorgeous-looking. They were white, I seem to remember and seemed to me to be glorious and majestic (though exceptionally loud!) taking off. My father worked on them and I knew they were very important to Britain. Later, I realised they were also horribly deadly. They carried our nuclear bombs.

And I remember, vividly, them being scrambled and in the air, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. (It's long since been out of commission and replaced.)


Beauty and horror, a fascinating combination. For a long time, I was conflicted about my family's RAF past. As a young woman, I took part in many demonstrations at RAF stations, vigorously resisting the promotion of the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction during the Cold War.


Now, I've come to some sort of resolution, convinced that strong democracies need to be strongly defended. My thinking has evolved.
But.

I love the Vulcan.
I hate the bombs she carried.

There's a tension between the two facts which I manage to live with. {g}Oh and the Victor! What a racket this one made continually, screeching off the runway near our homes.


I think the kids are nearing the end of their goodwill about my trip down Memory Lane or should that be Memory Runway? {g}

Just one more. Gotta love the Spitfire.

Apparently, Lenin enjoyed his shopping experience in the museum shop! We RAF people have a great sense of irony, you know!

It was good to be back in Shropshire!