Interview transcript

Part 1

In 1939 my Grandfather was a flight sergeant in the royal airforce.

He flew hurricanes out of Kenley aerodrome.

The airfield was attacked on numerous occasions during 1939 1940 the worst was on the 18th of august when a huge wave of german aircraft attack the whole of the south of England manly targeting RAF bases.

Kenley was in the forefront of the battle on that day. A lot of the airfield was destroyed including a lot of the hangers.

The 18th of august attack became known as the longest day, due to the amount of german planes continually coming over the south of England to bomb airfields.

My Grandfather was shot down on that day, he managed to crash land in Kent but his injurys meant that he could never fly again.

Part 2

As a kid we used to go upto kenley aroedrome and just muck around up there really, we used to go to the old firing ranges, this was the place where theaf planes used to test their guns by firing firing into a huge sandbank and we used to dig around trying to find all the old shrapnel which was the old bullets that were actually shot into this mound.

We used to get chased of by the military police who used to partol the place.

All the blast bays are still there today, some you can actually go into as part of the heritage walk around Kenley airfield.

Kenley arodrome is still used today its used to train pilots they use gliders to train them and if you go up there most days of the week or weekends you can seee them actually flying.

There is also a heritage walk around Kenley arodrome which is basically a history of what went up there.

I will be using this transcript to help with the timings of my animatics.