It’s been a while since we had a review of the press. Here are some Spitfire-related news for March.
- A full scale Spitfire in your garden? I would like to have one in mine, but is just seems like an overwhelming project. However, Mr. Hamish MacLeod in Moffat, Scotland has just inaugarated a full-size replica of this fighter in the front garden of his home. Inspiring. [BBC News]
More about Mr. Lac Leod’s Spitfire can be found in this article in the Scotsman.
- An airworthy two-seater Spitfire Mk. IX will be sold on acution at the RAF museum in Colindale, England, in April. The aircraft is expected to fetch £1.5 million and is the first of its kind to be on the UK auction block in more than 20 years. [Hendon & Finchley Times]
- We have also some news in the wake of the economical crisis in the UK. Savekers, a 106-year-old Birmingham family firm that produced components for Spitfire fighters and Lancaster bombers during World War II, collapsed recently. Other former supplier of aluminium plate for the Spitfires, Novelis (formerly Alcan) in South Wales closed their business at the beginning of the month. [Times Online & South Wales Argus]
There was a spitfire in the front garden of the Royal Air Force Association in East Finchley just after the war. As a lad I remember looking through the fence at it.
My mother lived in East Finchley and also remembers this aeroplane opposite the station and I have discovered that the Spitfire (as she also recalls it) was in actual fact a Hawker Hurricane Mk1 P3835 that was used by the local ATC squadron in Finchley and I also belive it was scrapped in 1946