St George's Church RAF Halton

Photo above: Dave Howell 75th Entry

The 75th Entry web-site has a really splendid coverage of the windows installed at St Georges Church Rather than try to repeat his coverage please use this link to go to his site. 

If you are bored and want to read a transcript of my talk at the dedication service please click here.

96^th Entry Window  - (Dedicated 7 November 04 )

The Spitfire and Hurricane in silhouette at the top of the window and the year 1940 remind us that most of us signed on the dotted line on 15^th September 1960 , exactly 20 years after the Battle of Britain.

Our wing colours of yellow (3-wing) and red (1-wing) are background for the dates 1960 to 1963, the time we spent at Halton, and also for the 4 brass wheels at the bottom of the window, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th of which are filled with the squadron colours of red, green and pale blue.

The 1st wheel has a purple infill, which signifies the time a 96^th Entry raiding party 'enhanced' the fountains in Trafalgar Square by dosing them with potassium permanganate, a well planned event, the outcome of which was reported in the national press, but blamed on Ban-the-Bomb protestors who were demonstrating that weekend.

The antique monkey wrench indicates the wide range of adaptable skills of our aircraft trades and the articulator those of our dental technicians. An articulator is a kind of adjustable vice that allows setting of complex geometric rules, thus ensuring any gnashers made would mesh together properly when 'installed' in the correct mouth.

The centre-piece of the window illustrates when, as senior entry, the 96^th  was privileged to provide ushers, a guard of honour and the Queen's colour party for the service of dedication of the new St George's church in July 1963. The colour party is unique in that this particular standard is paraded by non-commissioned ranks only.

The background to the colour party is the church pews and the main church window with plain glass, as it was at the time of the church dedication in 1963, without the superb blaze of colour you see now.

 The 96th Entry window design is therefore unique in having the original church window incorporated into its church window, which is then incorporated into the current church window to commemorate the original event. (Read it again - it makes perfect sense).

The fountain episode:

Planning the fountain episode involved careful measurement of the fountains (necessary to calculate the water volume and thus the amount of colouring agent required), noting where all the pump inlets were (necessary to quantify and position the powder drop locations), all this allied to mixing trials in the bath to get the correct colour shade (pity the poor apprentice on that room job). The powder was bought in small quantities across London to preclude anyone being traced and then transferred to 1lb bags. The actual powder drop was akin to an MI6 covert operation with stooges (site-watchers), a master of ceremonies with a newspaper on the steps of the National Gallery to signal the bag-droppers when to GO.

 The drop took place and the raiding party scattered per the plan, returning after 10 minutes, but as nothing appeared to be happening to the water they left to contemplate why, vowing to return the next morning. The next day the sight of the sun playing on the purple/pink water spraying from the fountains was their reward, added to by a paper seller who told Mr 'W' that the Council sometimes did this for Royal occasions but they had never done it for a Ban-the-Bomb demo before.

The tailpiece is that the perpetrators undertook to meet on the steps leading to the National Gallery on 9 June 1996 (9.6.96), each with a newspaper in hand. Only one person turned up (Mr 'S'). The plan is to try the meet up again on 9 June 2006, but wary of the fact that if this were advertised in the personal column of the Times or Haltonian it may be picked up on by the security forces keen to make a late arrest in order to 'close this heinous case'.

Those owning up to, or being remembered as taking part were Messrs 'A', 'B' x 3, 'G', 'H', 'L', 'M' x 2, 'S' x 2, 'T' and 'W' x 3. A covert operation ???

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