RAF Abingdon opened 90 years ago on 1st September 1932, and Elizabeth Drury has made a display in Abingdon Library to remember the date. The RAF base was initially home to bombers. From World War Two, bombers on active service were transferred to the east of the country, and training of bomber crews happened at RAF Abingdon. In 1948, RAF aircraft flew from Abingdon to West Berlin to drop food supplies around the clock to break the siege.
The Queen and Prince Philip visited RAF Abingdon in 1968 for the RAF’s Golden Jubilee.
The RAF Abingdon base closed as a result of Glasnost (Russian for openness), the peace dividend following the opening of the USSR to democracy, on 15th December 1992.
(Picture of the Queen’s visit from The Reading Evening Post – 4th July 1991 – thanks to www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk. The RAF badge is part of the display at Abingdon Museum.)
We live under the flight path and used to love watching the jets coming in and out. When it closed there was a Red Arrows display right overhead…it was amazing!
Nostalgia is not quite the right word for the sound of Beverleys doing full-power engine runs at 0600 in the mornings. After a few years the visitors’ question “How on earth do you cope with that noise ?” could honestly be answered with “We are used to it” as 3 million rivets in close formation passed over the house.
It is said* that you could never get lost in a Beverley – you just had to turn around and follow the oil slick all the way home.
* That comment came from a later colleague at A&AEE who had flown as a Flight Engineer in Abingdon Bevs.
I can remember many evenings when living on the Radley Road and the Beverleys were flying training circuits round and round they went.
We had just got our first tv from Radio rentals and each time the Beverleys flew across Radley college area the picture would wobble and jump around all over the screen.
Is that why Beverley Close is called that? I assumed that it was named after the town due to the army connection