Vera goes to Duxford

Well here, as promised, is Vera. We all went to Duxford today - one of my most favourite days out. Vera had a great time too - she got to try on this tin helmet just in case of air raids. It was very heavy and poor girl, she was nearly squashed.


But travelling round the corner she came across this rather scary looking tiger. Good job there was a thick glass screen between them.

But never fear, this dashing young American Air force Pilot came to her rescue. And she was very smitten, let me tell you!


She wanted a ride on Concorde but this was the closest she got to sitting on it - the wheel!. (That's my 2 children up front, the man at the back kept frowning at us all, he obviously didn't understand about Monkees).


Oh but Vera got to ride on an army truck - it was huge, but she's a brave young thing and wasn't at all scared...


... not until she got stuffed down the gun turret of a very, very big tank that is.

But all frivolity aside, the Imperial War Museum is essentially about war. And whilst being totally absorbed by the sheer magnitude of some of those planes, some things just hit you and make you really think about just what it is you're looking at. For some it's the World War I boots at the entrance to the Land Warfare building.

But for me it was this picture. I couldn't stop looking at it. How young does this 'man' look? Fast asleep he looks like any little boy to me. I wonder how far into the War this was taken. Did he survive? What horrors did he see on the Normandy Beaches? Did his mother ever see this picture? I'm sure it would have broken her heart if she had.