Bovington and the Tank Museum

I’ve posted about my Dad and Grandfather here in the past 

(http://banbrv.blogspot.com/2014/11/john-g-downing-and-john-downing.html).

Dad was proud to have served in the British Army in the Second World War as a tank driver in the famous “Desert Rats”. He never talked about his experiences except on a few occasions he would remember a funny story about his experiences or about the time he spent the winter of 1944 in Holland. He always had nice things to say about Holland and the Dutch people.

I had looked at his war souvenirs when I was a child, and had borrowed the ancient Voitlander camera that he had “Liberated” during the war. With it he had taken pictures of Egypt and Libya, Holland and Germany. Surprisingly (or perhaps because he had no film?) there were none from Sicily or Italy where he also served.

He had a copy of the Regimental History, which as far as I could tell had never been opened. 

His Regiment the 44^th Royal Tank Regiment was created solely for the war and was disbanded as soon as the conflict was over. The book then is pretty difficult to find and I was lucky he kept it. Also in the small metal tin where everything was kept were his medals and some business cards and postcards from Belgium.

After he passed away my Mum told me to take them, she had no interest in keeping them. My sisters took some things, and my niece asked if she could have the medal that her Grand Dad has given her if she could keep quiet for 5 minutes! Dad had a good sense of humour and loved all his Grand Kids.

Back at home I took all the pictures and studied them, I read the Regimental History and other books on the North Africa Campaign. The History revealed the awful destruction that tank warfare wreaked, the tragedy of tank crews burned and killed when their vehicles were hit. heat and thirst, minefields. And the dreaded 88mm anti tank guns that tore apart the flimsy British armour.

I discovered that they had been on the beaches of Sicily and Italy as well as Normandy. They had swum across the Rhine River in “Swimming Tanks” and fought their way to Hamburg before the war finally ended.

Dad drove many of the tanks on display

They remained in Germany until 1946 as Occupation Forces and finally he came home.

His life picked up where he’d left it, as a van driver delivering bread from door to door for the Coop Bakery in Birkenhead. He didn’t attend any of the re-unions, didn’t join the regimental association. Didn’t join on conversations about the war.

At his funeral a gentleman in a British Legion blazer came over to talk to me. I had no idea who he was, he said simply “Your Dad never talked about the war did he?”. He looked at me with pain in his eyes “He had a terrible war, he went through Hell”.

The memorial to the tank crews 

At that point my emotions overwhelmed me and tears flowed. When I looked up he was gone. I’ve ached since then to discover who he was and how he knew Dad. Perhaps he too had had a terrible war.

I have pored over the pictures and books in the years since and drawn what to my mind is a story of where he went and what he experienced, but without him to speak it is all conjecture. I talked to my sisters and told them that with their approval I intended to visit the Tank Museum when I was in UK next and donate the photographs and documents to their archives. They both agreed it was a good thing to do.

Finally Barbara and I had the trip planned, we’d fly to London, buy a camper van somewhere, tour Europe and visit our friends and relatives around the UK. My Aunt Sheila lives in Portsmouth which is in the South of England and not to far from Bovington where the museum is located and she kindly let us stay with her while we arranged the details of buying the camper.

Bovington Camp is an active Army Facility. It is home to the Royal Armoured Corps and the training center for tank crews. In World War 1 it was the nest from which the Armoured fledgling service sprang.

Tanks were a British invention. Originally called Land Ships. Winston Churchill was the head of the British Navy at the time and his inventive mind came up with the need of a vehicle that could cross the trenches, breaking the deadlock on the western front.

 Some very bright Army Engineering types experimented with wheeled vehicles then ordered a tracked vehicle from the USA for experimentation. Although the American vehicle didn’t work for crossing the trenches it’s tracked system laid the way for vehicles that did. The tank was born.

A Grant tank, fore runner of the Sherman.

The museum staff welcomed Barbara and I very warmly and were very patient as I became completely emotional trying to describe Dad’s history. Eventually I relaxed and went thru it all with them giving the details that I knew about places and things. They were very keen on the collection as a whole. They explained that they rarely got so many photographs from the same source, usually one of two and often damaged. Dad’s were well preserved and together. 

The Archive staff looking thru the collection

Many photographs and documents.

The papers included the mimeographed instructions to the drivers for going assure on D-Day for the invasion of Sicily. That flimsy piece of paper was very rare and I marvel that it survived at all. His paybook, drivers licenses, letters from the Regiment at the completion of his service and of all things a booklet from the Coop describing the remembrance service for employees who had served were all welcomed and taken into their care to be kept together under his name.

A vast sense of relief washed over me. I was still very emotional as I shook hands with the curators of the archives and Barbara and I stepped out to tour the museum. I’m sure I felt Dad’s spirit with me when we reached the section describing Holland and the crossing of the Rhine by the “Swimming Tanks” of the 44^th Royal Tank Regiment, his unit. I don’t know if he actually drove one of them, he did mention waterproofing the Shermans and Duplex Drive tanks but he was there and did cross the Rhine by barge, bridge or swimming.

The display describing Dad's Regiment the 44th RTR crossing the Rhine

Perhaps the last "Swimming Tank" in existence with skirts extended.

So I feel that he is in some way back with his comrades. His pride in the unit and his service never faded. Although he never talked about the horrors and pain, he did occasionally mention the humour and the humanity. A Dutch family he was billeted with had shared their meager food with him and he shared his rations with them because they were starving. 

He never forgot.

First nights in the Motorhome

Wow, this has been the start of a STEEP learning curve! We thought we knew about RV'ing based on our US experiences but we were in for a big surprise!

Nothing is the same except for the campers, who are, like their US cousins, pretty friendly and welcoming.

Immediately we found we'd been very spoiled in the US. The fact that we bought an RV which came completely equipped had us unprepared for one that came with nothing at all! We really appreciate how Mike and Lynne our Aussie friends felt when they bought their rig in Florida, even more so when we realized we had no tow vehicle so every time we wanted to go some where we had to take the whole thing with us. We seemed to be constantly going out to some local supermarket for bits and pieces. Still it was useful for getting me used to the size of the vehicle and the manual transmission.

One of the bad things we've found is that this rig has black water hookups like our US rig. The bad news is that campgrounds aren't set up for this and it may be impossible to use our toilet! Who knew!

Grey water here is just dump it into a drain, but you can't do that with the black water. Luckily the site we picked has a really nice bath house and we're parked feet from it so we can get by.

Of course this rig is TINY compared to our Rexhall. In fact I think this one would just about fit into the living room of the Rexhall. Every time one of us wants to move, the other one has to sit down to make room! The bed is a cab over type and climbing up the ladder is interesting, but nowhere near as interesting as getting down again!! Luckily the bed seems really comfortable and we have had no problems sleeping.

The campground is different too. Everyone tells us how nice this one is, and it IS nice, but there is NOTHING here except the bath house!! That and the nearest place to eat is a 1 mile walk away, there is no public transport nearby and the supermarket is 9 miles away, means a lot of sitting around the campground or a drive in the motorhome to find something.

Lucky the weather has been superb so far with sunny skies and temperatures in the 70's. Very unusual for May we're told, and people have started complaining about the heat!! Roll on 95 and 80% humidity in Florida!!

The motorhome (which I call the van) is small enough to fit in car sized parking spaces over here but hangs out a couple of feet on the end. So far we've been able to get where want to. Everywhere you stop you have to pay for parking including the supermarkets! If you buy more than $15 they will validate your parking. (All prices will be converted to US Dollars because my computer doesn't have the key for English Pounds or Euros!).

It is also a diesel. A turbo diesel yet! All 2000cc's of it. It has a 5 speed manual transmission which at times has me cursing like a sailor when I can't find 3rd or 5th. I am slowly getting the feel for it, but it's a little unusual as the gear shift sticks out of the dashboard. 

Being a manual (Stick Shift to our US friends) I have to remember my hill start techniques from when I drove over here 40 years back, For the non stick shift drivers, that entails finding the clutch bite point and using that to hold the vehicle as the parking brake is released. Rolling back a couple of feet as is the norm in the US is NOT the way here, The car behind will come right up to you bumper when you're stopped and there is no room for error.

And the gear shift is on the left, but on this van the parking brake is on the right!

We picked up the van on a Thursday and had reservations at the "Dulhorn Farm Holiday Park" about 20 miles South of where we picked it up. We picked the park based on it's closeness to the dealer and to the fact that we'd have to drive thru the major town of Weston Super Mare on the way, so we could go to the shops there and get the basics.

Luckily we knew the names of some UK stores that have sold camping gear since we were kids. Millets are nationwide here and we scouted out things like sleeping bags, pocket knives (which you can only buy in camping stores apparently), camping chairs etc. ASDA are the big supermarket chain and associated with Walmart apparently, so food, pots and pans, bedding came from there. We had to buy a gas bottle and electric cords, water hoses Sleeping bags, chairs and a few other things at an RV dealer along the way. (Called a Caravan Centre here) (No that's how center is spelled in Europe).

Eventually we had enough for the first couple of days while we "Shook Down" the rig and the rest of our gear.

Although the van was several hundred pounds heavier when we finished, our wallets were many thousands of pounds lighter, after we paid for the van, taxes, insurance and all the other stuff. I suppose that pun wouldn't have worked if the weight was in kilo's and the money in Euro's!!

So now we are staying in this park for 5 nights as this weekend is a long weekend for "Spring Bank Holiday" which is notorious for bad traffic. Sally our daughter called and said she'd like to meet up with us next week as the Grand Kids are off school for a week. We decided we'd move closer to them (they live about 200 miles North of here). We've joined the "Camping and Caravanning Club which gets us into their club campgrounds at discount rates and a campground book like Good Sam gives you. In fact thinking about it there are many similarities between the two.

I'd throw in some pictures to keep you all amused but the campground WiFi is too slow to let me do that!

England

British Airways did an outstanding job getting us from Orlando to London Gatwick, It was so nice to be treated as welcome guests instead of cattle. The bags were free, so was the food. The in-flight entertainment I though was excellent and the seats were both roomy and comfortable. Who knew that flying could be enjoyable again?

We left Orlando at 5.00pm and arrived in Gatwick at 7.00am. We had snatches of sleep here and there but we were very jet lagged on arrival. customs and immigration were a breeze and we were soon walking from the air terminal to the rail terminal in the same building. a 40 minute wait went by quickly as we people watched and drank in the sounds of several different European languages being spoken by our fellow travelers.

The train took 90 minutes to reach Portsmouth on the South Coast of England, taking us through the rich green countryside. We were delighted to see all the sheep, something rarely seen in the parts of the US that we've been to. The spring lambs were running around having lots of fun.

In Portsmouth we took a cab to the rental car company. We have had many bad experiences with rental cars from London's airports and were determined to avoid another, plus taking the train was so much easier than driving the 100 or so miles when jet lagged.

My Aunt Sheila lives in Portsmouth and had kindly offered us the use of her spare bedroom. The Sat Nav (GPS) built into the rental car got us there without a hitch. Me driving the car on the left side of the road with the steering on the right and the stick shift on the left was slightly less straightforward, but I started to get the hang of it before long.

The Renault Cleo Rental Car

We spent the rest of the day recovering and eating Sheila's delicious food! 

Friday we all went for a walk along the sea front. Portsmouth was Britain's main Naval base from ancient times and the fortifications that protected the port are still there. Lord Nelson, the Royal Navy's most famous Admiral walked these very walls, and his flagship HMS Victory is preserved just across the harbor together with the Mary Rose, Henry the Eighth's warship that capsized and sank on its during a battle in the harbor. It was raised and preserved in one of the earliest underwater archaeological digs.

The harbor defenses at "The Point"

The harbor is a busy one, with many car ferries going to Spain and France and a nearby island named the Isle of Wight which sits in the entrance to the Solent river. Cruise ships, dredgers, survey ships and pleasure boats all wove their way out to sea too.

Even a hovercraft service to the Isle of Wight

We had been researching the purchase of an RV in the UK and a town named Weston Super Mare seemed to have several dealers, so on Saturday we drove the rental car there and started shopping. After a disappointing start at a dealer that looked good in their adverts we found another dealer close by that had several RV's in our price range. One in particular caught our eye. A Fiat Riviera. 

Not a good picture, more later!

This would be called a "C" class in the US, and a very small C Class too! But in the UK it's called a Motor Home and considered quite large, We liked it because it was fairly roomy, has a built in shower and bathroom, was diesel powered and most importantly was just a little over our nominal budget. 

Cab over bed of course

When we started talking with the salesman we mentioned that we would be selling it again in about 4 months and he immediately made us a written buy back offer that would mean the whole 4 months would only cost us 3,000 pounds. MUCH cheaper than renting one. The rig would also come safety inspected, road taxed, tested and certified as safe for habitation and for the gas system and have 3 month parts and labor warranty on the entire vehicle. SOLD!!

Easy come easy go they say, and after spending the night on the way back in Salisbury we spent Sunday morning exploring that city before driving back to Portsmouth and dinner out with Sheila and my cousins John, Liz and Helen plus their spouses.
I even fitted in a little drawing and painting too!!

Salisbury Cathedral

Gargoyles!

The City Gates

Half timbered buildings everywhere

So now we have to wait until Thursday to pick up the rig before we spend our first 5 nights camping in it while we buy all the things like crockery, cutlery, pots, pans, chairs, bedding that never come with a rig from a dealer. A reminder of how lucky we were when we bought the Rexhall from De 3 years ago and found that she was leaving all that stuff in it for us.

For a map of our travels so far see:

http://u.osmfr.org/m/148564/

When time slowed down

A hunting dynasty that included thoroughbreds, show jumping horses, polo ponies and hunting dogs of all shapes and sizes. Beautiful both inside and out but unfortunately they don't allow photography inside.

All in all a very busy couple of weeks.

We decided that since we did Interstate up to Tallahassee we would do side roads back and took FL 27 south. What an eye opener! We should have taken this road up, it's 4 lanes,no traffic, very few towns and shorter!! Duh....

We stopped at Homasossa for a couple of nights. Someone had told us what a great place it is, how the campground is wonderful etc, etc. 

If wine isn't the answer then don't ask the question

Needless to say we were disappointed and the campground was expensive (to our mind) for what as basically a weekend party resort for people from Orlando. 

We dropped by the Elks Lodge to unwind then moved a little closer to our final destination in Orlando. We decided to stay at the SKP's Sumter Oaks RV Park. As soon as we entered the office we met with somebody we knew from SKP's Chapter 57. Once set up we got invited over for a “Happy Hour” and lo and behold there were more Chapter 57 members and we were immediately at home and relaxed. You can't beat SKP's and/or Elks for a friendly welcome.

Chapter 57 Happy Hour

Party time

Laundry and sketching took up the following day and the evening was the night I was to be initiated at the Eagle Eerie in Oklahumpka. So now I'm an Eagle as well as an Elk!

Sumpter Oaks was quiet and getting quieter by the day as the Snow Birds left to go back north. Even the work campers left. Somebody mentioned there would only be 4 occupied rigs during the summer.

Sketch of Sumpter Oaks SKP Park

No need for binoculars when you bird watch here.

Barbara and I had the run of the place for the rest of the week. We discovered that the TV in the big activities center could get NBCSN so we watched the Russian Grand Prix on Friday, Saturday and Sunday to get our Formula 1 fix. Barbara got to watch Call the Midwife on PBS and we also caught up on Home Fires. Unfortunately the park has poor TV and phone connectivity so we couldn't watch our own TV (we don't have, nor do we want satellite TV). Luckily our phone booster system got us a good phone/internet connection and the activity center has a big library of books, magazines and DVD's so we got our movie fix too!

Pen and ink sketch of a 1940 Plymouth Woody Wagon

Thousand Trails in Orlando was like, well Thousand Trails! A very wide assortment of RV's from Mega Motor-homes to beat up trailers. It was very, very quiet without the snowbirds and winter family tourists. We had a quiet couple of weeks reading, watching TV, sketching and sorting out all the things we need to do before we fly out to UK.

I got to hang out with the creative people at the Leesburg Center for the Arts again

Cinco De Mayo party at LCA

I called my sisters and caught up with their news, messaged our friends to let them know we were on our way, searched the internet for motor-homes for sale in the UK, and finally decided that when we get to London we'll take the train to Portsmouth and stay with my Aunt Sheila for several days while we look for a camper van. We let her know and ordered a GPS to be delivered to her house. We have to remember to call it a “Sat Nav” because that's what they call them in UK. There will be a few new phrases we'll have to learn while we're over there.

Time dragged, we got on each others nerves, made excuses to go out shopping or for dinner just to get out of the campground. Waiting and anticipating are tough.

Boredom got the better of me so I got creative and invented a way to make “Solar Shades” for the RV windows. When it's stored down here in Orlando the daytime temperatures are going to be in the 90's every day and it's very humid too. To keep the heat down inside I got rolls of reflective insulation and cut them so they were 1” bigger than the inside of the window frames. That let me tuck them into the frames to retain them, no tape needed. And they seem to work. The next day the outside temperature was 95 but with one AC unit running it was 77 inside.

My home made "Solar Shades"

After we got to bed one night the phone started ringing but we ignored it. In the morning I looked and it was Mike and Lynne our Aussie friends. I called them back (Allowing for the 2 hour time difference!). It turns out they are in Calgary Alberta and the sun had come out! The rest of their Aussie friends are arriving over the next couple of days and they will then caravan around the area for several weeks. It was good catching up with their news and to have them catch up on ours. 

Maybe we'll meet up again next year.

Time was dragging, then we started packing our cases, prepping the rig for storage. 

Seems to be picking up speed again!

Around the Panhandle

In fact it's amazing they can fit it in in so short a time. But alas we had but one day, and that lasted from 10am to 9pm just at the show.

We hit the road again and took the Interstate! I know practice what you preach! But we have a deadline to meet in Pensacola which is 500+ miles away so we broke our own rule and “super slabbed” it to Tallahassee. 

We stayed at the Elks for the night, got a tremendous welcome and horned in on dinner with the Lady Elks who were having their meeting. Meeting with and talking to the local members soon made the evening fly by, and we will have to come back again to see all the sights they told us we must see in the city.

Next stop Pensacola, renowned for being the training center for Naval Aviators. We were here to meet up with Wayne and Lynne from San Diego, fellow member of the the “Shanty Shakers” RV club with whom we've had several enjoyable rallies. Wayne and Lynne are heading to visit relatives around Naples FL and we worked out that we would all be around Pensacola about the same time so we arranged to meet at the Elks there.

Wayne and Lynne, always smiling!

Apart from just getting together there was another reason to meet up. Wayne owns a DeLorean car and I've been making a painting of it based on a photograph he sent me. He was very pleased with the result.

The finished painting.

Wayne and I also wanted to visit the Naval Aviation Museum here. The girls didn't seem too interested so we went without them!

The Blue Angels team hanging from the roof!

All the excitement at Fun n Sun set me up for a big disappointment when we got to Pensacola and the Naval Aviation Museum. I'd been there before some 30 years ago and had fond memories of it. Back then, if I remember, most of the exhibits were outside. For the sake of preservation they have mainly been moved inside, but now they are so jammed in it's almost impossible to take photographs, and it can get confusing too. The tram ride around the flight line was canceled due to a vehicle breakdown so that probably didn't help. Wayne wanted to see a particular airplane that was pulled out of a lake in San Diego and that is apparently waiting to be restored and it can only be viewed from the tram ride.

Camped side by side at the Pensacola Elks Lodge

Wayne enjoyed it and even put up with me jabbering on about engines, pilots, airplanes the way I do when I get an audience in an airplane museum. We all went to the local Irish Pub for dinner after and if you happen to be in Pensacola I'd recommend McGuire's. But expect a ½ hr wait, it's very popular.

Wayne and Lynne headed south while we stayed for the rest of the week and explored the “Panhandle”, which is as the name suggests, the western part of Florida that is shaped like – a pan handle! 

30+ years ago when we first came to the states, we drove across to this area from New Orleans. We had happy memories of Fort Walton Beach and Destin, which were sleepy little beach resorts when we visited them around Thanksgiving in 1983.

Not any more! The beach can't be seen for tower blocks and vacation homes. A blight of brightly colored boxes on stilts has spread around the whole of Florida's coastline. I hope we find some unspoiled areas somewhere. We are getting tired of the sprawl.

Indian Gap Campground near Port St Joe

We did find some less developed beach down in Port St Joe and Indian Gap but there were “For Sale" signs everywhere so it can't last. Being Easter Weekend it was busy despite it not being a public holiday in the US. In Europe it's a 4 day weekend and everyone usually heads out hoping for good weather on the first camp-out of the year. We actually had snow one Easter in Holland!

Fresh Shrimp for dinner.

Probably a lot of our discontent has to do with our trip to Europe which is looming on the horizon. It's less than a month away now and we have to do a few chores before we leave. We sketched out where we're going too be, and when, so we can organize a few last minute doctors visits and the cleaning and storage of the car and rig.

We had to get back to Tallahassee after the list of places to see we got from the Elks, so we're going to spend at least 3 nights camping at the Lodge again. I tried my favorite phone app. Which finds local Micro Breweries and it found 5 within 5 miles! After a couple of false starts due to the addresses not being up to date in the app. We found the Proof Brewery where they had several dark beers for us. We even filled our growler for the first time in ages so we could continue to enjoy their Brown Ale back at the rig.

Proof Brewery Tallahassee

Our first night at the Lodge was quiet as they weren't open! The second night however was quite amazing. We were welcomed with open arms, the people we met the first time we stayed all came by and said “HI welcome back”. Then we were invited to join in on their monthly “Beer, Blues and Burgers” evening. As the name suggests there were made to order burgers, a live blues band and Yingling beer. Can't beat that for $5!

We explored and found 2 dartboards in the adjacent room, so I grabbed our darts from the rig and we played a couple of practice games while listening to the music across the bar. Several people wandered by and remarked how good it was to see somebody using the dart boards. How they used to play but stopped for some reason. How much fun it would be to play again etc, and the next thing we knew we were being told we couldn't leave Wednesday but had to be there on Thursday because they were all going to bring their darts and we all were going to play!You just can't beat an Elks welcome!

One Hundred and Eighty!

So we ended up staying until Sunday and explored.

Goodwood is a local home, it would be a “Stately Home” in UK probably. The family founded a charitable trust to preserve it and left it fully furnished down to the cutlery and even left their clothes in the closets!

Goodwood

Super shadows and reflections at the swimming pool.

The Tallahassee Auto museum provided many subjects for drawing and painting. The collection included MUCH more than cars. There were motorcycles, outboard motors, guns, knives, pedal cars, fishing equipment, boats, it just went on and on.

We had a side trip up to Georgia, which is only 25 miles north of here, to visit Thomasville and the Pebble Hill Plantation. Another charitable trust left with the entire contents, the house was the center of a horse and hunting dynasty that included thoroughbreds, show jumping horses, polo ponies and hunting dogs of all shapes and sizes. Beautiful both inside and out but unfortunately they don't allow photography inside.

Believe it or not this was the CATTLE BARN!

Pebble Hill Plantation main house

The Appalachie Indian meeting house at Mission San Luis in Tallahassee.

This could be a still life painting one of these days

All in all a very busy couple of weeks.