9^th of November 2023

For some time there had been a mention of having a small get-together at Norwich and this finally was arranged after Angie Angell met Derek and Christine, who are responsible for running the Aviation Museum, while boating on the Broads. (In the pub, actually).

It was arranged for a Thursday in November, to suit the Museum, which was closed for the day to the public so that we were the only people there.

It does make a huge difference, as we found at the de Havilland Museum, if we have the run of the place – we do not get in the way of the general public and they don’t get under our feet.

The Museum has interesting exhibits, a large number of aircraft standing outside considering the space available and a Tea Room.  As the space indoors is not limitless, we circulated local AIR UK crews and asked people to let us know if they planned to come.  The news did spread further than we anticipated, however.

Angie thought we would be likely to have 35 turn up, but the final head count was 50.  Two had cancelled at a late stage, there were five no-shows and four people arrived who hadn’t notified us in advance.

After the appalling amount of rain that had fallen, we actually managed a dry day. This was needed as the aircraft were (of course) outdoors and some distance away from the building. The F27 G-BHMY, in surprisingly good condition, was open for everyone to climb all over and seemed almost ready to do the evening AMS. An RJ was also open and looked like a twin of our later 146s. A lucky few, at the end of the day, managed to get into the Avro Vulcan which they described as ‘small’.  Not from the outside, it wasn’t.

At all times the decibels from the Tea Room seemed to fill the building.

The Museum staff were terrific – the atmosphere wasn’t like staff and customers, but one huge mass of friends. The team of volunteers were quite special.

The cost? Angie paid £100 for sole use of the Museum. The Museum entry charge per head was £7.  We decided to take £3 cash off each person to repay Angie’s £100.  We had a surplus on the day so that went to the Museum funds. For a tenner plus refreshments, it wasn’t exactly expensive.

There is talk of doing it again next year – Norwich Nostalgic November.

 Best Wishes

Adele Stephenson and Angie Angell