Thank you for the most amazing response. In today’s blog -some pictures, the King and Queen visiting TRE, and that terrible Halifax bomber crash June 7 1942.
Plus I’ve heard from those of you who already have an historic interest and have written books and run websites that mark this amazing radar story. And about the people- parents and grandparents who went on to do remarkable things after the war too – taking their expertise and brilliance all over the world to work on things as varied as the Manhattan Project to installing Toronto’s first mainframe computer to working with heavy water reactors.
Please keep remembering, dig out any old photos that I would love to see – ask members of your family who might remember bits and pieces. I really hope that together we can produce a colourful tapestry of what life was like for the radar families from the war and onwards.
I’ve already had some lovely photographs in:
This is from Robert Webbie – of his parents Doris and Eric on the very top of Malvern Beacon in 1944. Thanks Robert, that’s so nostalgic -how many of us have trekked up to the top of the Beacon?
(I’m working on a place within the website where everyone will be able to see what others have sent in)
And he sent another – of the visit to TRE by the King and Queen in 1944… Robert says: “I believe this picture was taken during a visit by the King to Malvern during the war. My mother is in the picture, standing right on the corner of the wall. My father was in the RAF and both had been at Worth Maltravers, although they didn’t meet until the relocation to Malvern. My uncle on my mothers side, Wilfred Hill MBE was ex RAF at this time and was part of the team that requisitioned Malvern College. He once said to me “I was still relatively young but I never had so much power before or since then”
And this is from Stephen Smith, who says: “Hello, My father Jim Smith worked as a Mechanical Design Engineer at Malvern during the war years. He met my mother there, Elsie, who was a land army girl at Bamfords farm.”
Lots more pictures are coming in thick and fast.
So….just to start: so many people have wanted to make sure I know all about the fateful crash that nearly crippled the radar work at Malvern before it had really got going: Thanks for your insights, and it has set me off doing more research…
Let me tell more in this video:
`Radar Families' 