00:00Good morning. My name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts. I deserve for Sussex Newspapers this fabulous sounding, deeply fascinating sounding book coming out, RAF Tangney in 100 Objects by Mark Hillier and Martin Mace. Mark, must have been a labour of love.
00:17Yes. Yeah, it's taken about three and a half years to pull together. But what a fascinating topic, you know, and to be able to showcase the history of such an important airfield and all the ground crew and air crew that served there, you know, from its inception to closure. It's an honour to be able to do it, really.
00:36So when you look back at that history, are we talking about something that was a typical airfield or was it an exceptional one? What is it?
00:43It's quite exceptional. I think really, you know, from its different roles. I mean, it started as a training airfield back in 1918 and air crews were being trained in biplanes and unfortunately succumbing to the laws of physics quite regularly around the Chichester area.
01:00So and then, of course, later on, went on to be a well-known fighter station.
01:05And there were two squadrons in particular there, one on 43. And if you were a young single RAF pilot, Tangney was the place to go with race course and the harbour and lovely pubs.
01:17So if you were a young, you know, aspiring RAF pilot, it was the place to be in the 20s and 30s.
01:23And you were saying how controversial it was when it was closed in the 70s.
01:27Yeah, absolutely. So I think so many people loved it. Yeah, exactly.
01:31It was such a loved airfield, you know, in such a lovely location in the South Downs that when it went, you know, so many memories.
01:39But equally, well, you know, world records were broken there with the high speed flight, you know, with Neville Duke and the Hunter.
01:46So, you know, it was it was an incredible history to an airfield.
01:51And we've been lucky to be able to showcase some of that through artefacts and and also a royal connection.
01:57You know, actually, people don't realise that one of the first royal visits there for the Prince of Wales, the future king, Edward VIII, was actually the 26th of April 1929.
02:06And then later on, Prince Charles went there to learn to fly in a chipmunk, the Avalon chipmunk.
02:12So it's got an amazing royal connection.
02:14So, you know, there's there's lots of interesting aspects.
02:17But the point is, is looking at objects.
02:20There's so many artefacts, so many objects.
02:22But if we look at them in the right spirit of inquiry, we discover so much, don't we?
02:27And that's the essence of the book.
02:28Totally that. You know, I mean, many years ago, I sort of started really researching sort of World War I in particular and looking at every gravestone or a memorial plaque.
02:38And I always used to think behind every name, there's a long story.
02:42And, you know, Tangli is no different.
02:44If you take one artefact, whether it's a logbook or a photograph or, you know, a headstone, a casualty, there is so much to the backstory.
02:53You just need to look. And it's incredible.
02:55Yeah.
02:56Fantastic. Well, it sounds a brilliant book.
02:58Congratulations on completing it, Ewan Martin and Mark.
03:01Lovely to speak to you again. Thank you.
03:03Thanks very much. Cheers.
03:04Cheers.
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03:06Cheers.
03:08Cheers.
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