Main menu
I wrote this story originally in 1993 and slightly edited it for inclusion in my website
One very dark and wet Friday afternoon early in 1991 the Station Commander of RAF Scampton, Group Captain Richard Gowring, telephoned and asked me to meet him at 4.30pm outside the MT Hangar which was in a corner of the airfield not far from the Red Arrows’ hangar. Some BBC people wanted to have a look at the hangar with a view to broadcasting a band concert from within. Naturally I said I would be there but I was mystified by the choice of venue. It turned out that the BBC had planned to record one of their popular Radio 2 ‘Friday Night is Music Night’ programmes from RAF Coningsby on Thursday 16 May, the anniversary of the famous Dam Busters’ Raid in 1943, for broadcast the following evening. It so happened that the date coincided with the delivery to British Airways of a brand-
The aircraft was named ‘City of Lincoln’ by the Lord Lieutenant of Lincolnshire out on the airfield at Coningsby. The Jumbo jet was parked nose to nose with the other ‘City of Lincoln’, the Lancaster of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight based at Coningsby. Unfortunately, the Station Commander at Coningsby had decided that he would be unable to offer the necessary facilities for the band concert because of the on-
Many of Coningsby’s personnel were still away on active service in the Middle East so one could understand his reluctance to have a public concert on base.
The BBC researchers and engineers were dismayed when we showed them inside the hangar. It was exactly what you would expect an MT hangar to be: dirty, dark, cold, and full of vehicles. In any case the BBC wanted a space large enough to contain the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Central Band of the RAF, and an audience of about 1,000. Our MT hangar was obviously much too small. The researcher was getting desperate and asked if there were any other hangars at Scampton that might be more suitable. I suggested number 1 Hangar – it was under-
We drove in convoy to 1 Hangar at the other end of the airfield in driving rain and went inside. Instantly the BBC folk were delighted with what they saw. It was much larger than the MT hangar, it was clean, and it had its own efficient heating system. Group Captain Gowring committed himself to hosting the band concert.
I thought it worth pointing out there and then to the BBC folk that Scampton is not in the city of Lincoln, any more than Coningsby is. The confusion this quirk of geography causes is something which, from time to time, niggles the councillors of the West Lindsey District Council in whose bailiwick Scampton really is. West Lindsey DC has its headquarters in Gainsborough which is twice as far from Scampton as Lincoln is.
Most ordinary people do not worry themselves about local politics but I learned soon after starting work at Scampton in 1989 that there is a long standing jealousy between the District Council and the City Council and that civic protocol is all important – to the councillors at least. For example, the Mayor of Lincoln is not permitted to attend a function at RAF Scampton wearing the official Chain of Office without getting the prior permission of the Chairman of the District Council. The BBC researcher was not fazed by this intelligence but, as the RAF Scampton Community Relations Officer, I would have to make sure that the Chairman and councillors from West Lindsey DC were invited to the concert and they would no doubt make sure that the Mayor and Corporation of the City of Lincoln did not get all the glory.