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Abandoned billets |
Another of my 'abandoned buildings' shots. We often
took a caravan trailer down to the New Forest area of Hampshire for weekend
breaks and holidays, and usually stayed at a Forestry Commission campsite
which was once part of the old Beaulieu Airfield. Wandering round the
campsite one day I came across these long abandoned huts huddled like
sleeping dinosaurs on the edge of the airfield next to the old perimeter
track.They brought back memories. I have no doubt they were once the billets
of the groundcrews: the fitters, riggers, armourers, wireless mechanics
and so on who looked after the bombers that took off on night raids almost
every evening during the war, often working in biting cold or rain. The
unsung heroes without whom the aircraft would not have flown. No films
that I know of have been made, not books written, about them. All that's
left to mark the six years of their lives here, now more than half a century
ago, are these shells of buildings with a few cryptic stencilled numbers
on broken doors that mean nothing to anyone any more. I took the shot
with my Canon A1 and FP4 film. |
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