00:00So this is Hangar 42 at Blackpool Airport, the Spitfire Visitor Centre.
00:27So this was the very first hangar built in May 1939 as part of RAF Squires Gate.
00:35Prior to 1939, this was a horse racing track at Blackpool.
00:39But yeah, this is the first hangar and soon to be the last surviving wartime hangar at Blackpool Airport.
00:45So it's an important building in its own right.
00:49This collection has taken 15 years to put together.
00:53We've been here at Blackpool Airport since 2015.
00:57Prior to that, we were based in a private accommodation when we were raising money for the Spitfire Memorial at Fairhaven Lake,
01:04which a lot of your viewers will have seen on their trips to Lydham St. Anne's in the past.
01:08Battle of Britain Sunday, the 14th of September, we have a memorial, a short memorial service that we're hosting down at Fairhaven Lake for Battle of Britain Day.
01:23And then on the 15th of September, we've got the two-seater Spitfire from Biggin Hill here operating.
01:30So we're operating the flight experiences here.
01:33But it's an important day in our calendar because a lot of people always think the Battle of Britain is all about Kent and the southeast of England.
01:41Whereas up here, you know, obviously with the raids, the very first raid in the Battle of Britain actually took place on the 3rd or 4th up in Scotland.
01:49So the Battle of Britain was fought all over the UK, and nine group here at Blackpool and the northwest of England had a key role to play protecting Liverpool and Manchester at the time.
02:00Throughout the war, you know, certainly in the period of the Liverpool Blitz, for example, the air crews from here would have been up every night, night flying in very difficult conditions.
02:11Anyone who lives in Lancashire knows what the Fowl Coast is like.
02:15We can imagine taking off from a darkened airstrip, no lights, no illuminations being on, and navigating your way around the northwest trying to find incoming raiders must have been quite frightening.
02:28And I think that's borne out by the fact that 92 young men died flying operational missions.
02:34None of them were lost to German action.
02:39They were all fell foul of the Lancashire weather.
02:43In those days, it was a compass and a map, folding your map correctly, and literally timing your headings, but you're taking into account all the weather as well, especially the wind here.
02:53You know, and you've got to be very, very careful, and a lot for young men, who a lot of them didn't even have a car licence, you've got to remember,
03:01and they're taking these things up in the middle of the night and being expected to fight and find their way home as well.
03:07It's a British icon, isn't it? I think that's the thing. I think it's what it stands for more than anything else.
03:27Sadly, that generation that grew up with the Spitfire is rapidly passing us by,
03:33but their sons and daughters and grandchildren now come here to remember what their grandparents did in World War II.
03:41And the Spitfire and the hurricane are absolutely vital pieces of British history,
03:46and we need to give people the opportunity to come and see them up close
03:50and hear the stories of what the young men and women did during the Battle of Britain and World War II in general.
03:58The youngest man in the Battle of Britain was Geoffrey Wellham, who was 18 years of age when he climbed into one of these things.
04:08Sadly, the last Battle of Britain pilot recently passed away, so that generation sadly is now gone.
04:14But I think young people need to come and have an appreciation,
04:18not only of the fantastic technology that the British actually came up with to survive World War II,
04:24and we did, but the call to arms that men and women from across the nation actually rallied to
04:32to protect the shores of the British Isles from tyranny.
04:39The only way to prevent future conflict is by not forgetting the ones that took place in the past.
04:45The нужен in the past.
04:47You
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