Brian and Barbara RV'ing: South from Liverpool

Further down the Pier Head is Liverpool’s Titanic Memorial dedicated to the ships Engine Room staff who were in the main from Liverpool.

Titanic Liverpool was moored at the marina

Titanic seems to have become a major part of this trip and I think I will have to dedicate a separate blog about our journey thru its story and our experiences.

Meanwhile we caught up with a few friends and relatives and spoiled the Grand Kids a little more, before heading southwards to spend a few days with Graham and Elaine near Lincoln.

Grand Daughter Kaitlynd shows off her photo skills with a portrait of her brother Niail

Lincoln was the center of the bomber campaign against Germany in WW2 and the whole area is dotted with airfields from that era and museums, pubs and monuments that celebrate the sacrifices made by airmen from all over the world.

Graham and Elaine's Pontiac Business Coupe

We attended a 1940’s weekend. Popular across England with people who like to reminisce about those times. Everyone was dressed in period costumes and several re-enactors groups had displays of both military and civilian goods.

The Dam Busters Pub

With a Lancaster Bomber tire as decor

Thanks Graham and Elaine for a great time.

Bomber Command "Operation Manna" memorial
Celebrating the food drops to the starving Dutch population in 1945

We have reverted to our “No plan plan”! Or maybe its a “Half plan plan” because we are going to a Steam Rally at the end of the month with another old friend Kit.

We ambled towards Cambridge and stopped at a pub for the night intending to visit the “Dad’s Army Museum”. Dad’s Army was a British TV comedy about the Home Guard in WW2.

"Desert Rats" 7th Armoured Division Memorial

Unfortunately it was only open on Saturdays and as we arrived on Tuesday we didn’t get to see it.

In another of those awesome moments when fate steps in we searched the area online for something else and a picture of a tank on a plinth popped up.

Eerily it was a monument to the famed Desert Rats that my Dad served with. We set out to find it.

The monument was deep in Thetford Forest about 5 miles from where we had spent the night. When we arrived and started exploring it turned out that the 7^th Armoured Division had been brought here from Italy in March 1944 to train and prepare for D Day. Dad’s unit, the 44^th Royal Tank Regiment was here!

From the unit history I knew that the short period they were here was the only time between 1941 and 1946 that they were in UK. Before that time they had been in the front line in Africa, Sicily and Italy. Afterwards they were in Normandy, Belgium, Holland and Germany. At wars end they were in Hamburg and in 1946 they were part of the Victory parade in Berlin.

The site of the original NAAFI buildings. Dad would have been right here in 1944

A sign said there was a museum and it was open but when we got there is said it was closed. A little ticked off about it I called the number of the manager shown on the information board to suggest he took down the sign saying it was open.

He immediately told us to wait there, and minutes later he opened the place up just for us!

Although there is very little to be seen of the original camp except the concrete roads they have recreated some of the buildings to form the museum. These stand on the bases of the NAAFI buildings. NAAFI stood for Navy, Army, Air Force Institute. This would roughly equate to the PX store in the US but provided entertainment for the enlisted men with things like pool tables, darts and music as well as having a canteen serving food and drinks.

So Dad drove these roads and stood in this very spot!

We decided that our next stop would be Cambridge, neither of us had ever been here or to the other famous college town of Oxford, We stayed at a nice but expensive Camping Club site that was just 150 yards from the bus stop for the town center.

We used the hop on hop off bus to see the city including the big American Cemetery.

The American Cemetery Cambridge

Our particular favorite naturally was Downing College! How nice that they named it after us.

The history of Downing College

An imposing building, quite suitable for our college

Actually it was named for George Downing who it appears was a pretty slick fellow, having been on BOTH sides of the English civil war and awarded honors for having been so. He was also instrumental in getting the Dutch to leave North America, which led to New Amsterdam being renamed New York! Good old George!

Downing Street where the British Prime Minister lives is named after him.

The ENIGMA code machine

We saw on the map that we would be quite close to Bletchley Park. This was a Top Secret WW2 establishment that cracked the German military codes and developed the modern computer. History has recorded the US ENIAC as the first but this British one predated it and was too secret for it to be known.

The original country house at Bletchley

The code breakers used every inch inside

A sudden thought came to us while we were there.

We had planned that we would spend the best part of 5 months in UK and Ireland seeing all those things we missed when we lived here for 35 years. And now, suddenly we have been here 3 month already and we are feeling pinched for time!

There is no way we can do all the things we planned…

Where the heck has the time gone! We have to start trimming our ambitions and putting dates on calendars! We have to PLAN….

Meanwhile we headed South towards my Aunt Sheila's to see her and my several cousins around Portsmouth on the South Coast. We were here 5 years ago too but missed a lot of stuff.

Barb, Sheila, Helen and Liz

Several nice cozy pubs provided camping, beer and food along the way. We LOVE pub camping!

Some nice pubs we camped at.

Behind one of the pubs

A traditional British Canal Boat, like a house boat.

A side trip into Southampton provided another Titanic link as this was the port she sailed from. 790 of her crew were from here and only 175 survived.