Call Rettendon police because I am in trouble yet again. This time for sniffing around some old buildings behind the railway line at Southend airport.
The building you see here is a former barrack room for RAF photographers stationed at the base during WW2. In the white building next to this, the aerial photographs which have become important social documents were processed. Can't you just imagine them being developed and hanging to dry in a mangy old darkroom? Thanks to the work of these guys WW2 fans like me are able to know the precise locations of local pillboxes, both extant and destroyed. Can you blame me for wanting to closely inspect this place?
As I came out of the barrack room, I was accosted by some a**hole wearing a yellow security jacket. "What are you doing?" was his polite way of introducing myself. When I told him I was making a website on RAF Rochford, he didn't want to know. "This is all out of bounds. The airport isn't open to non-members."
It comes to something when a girl can't go out for a walk on a Sunday afternoon to look at some old historical sites without the entire Essex local constabulary after her. Perhaps Rettendon cop-shop have passed on my photofit to this guy and Southend Flying Club are using it as a dart board. Okay, slight exaggeration, but what this guy said to me seems about the most ludicrous bit of piffle I have heard lately. How can an airport be "closed"? And how does he know I'm not a "member"? Member of what exactly?
Is this what you get for sending off your twenty quid to the Vulcan Restoration Team?
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