On the road

A keen team from the Memorial set out to win new visitors when they journeyed to Margate to support a Battle of Britain 85^th anniversary event.

Trustee and photographer Barry Duffield, treasurer Sam Pilcher and her husband Adrian spend a day at the WonderWorks Hornby visitor centre, where Airfix was hosting an anniversary event to highlight 85 years since the 1940s aerial conflict.

The hard-working trio took a stall along and chatted to visitors about the attractions at Capel-le-Ferne in a bit to encourage more people to visit the clifftop memorial to the Few. Other stalls at the event were manned by teams from the Battle of Britain Bunker in Uxbridge, a Battle of Britain gaming club and the Spitfire & Hurricane Museum in Manston.

There was also a working Merlin engine that was fired up on a number of occasions in the car park, prompting a temporary exodus as the visitors dashed outside to see and hear it.

“It was an enjoyable day out and gave us a great opportunity to ‘sell’ the Memorial to potential visitors with an interest in the Battle of Britain,” said Sam. "The people we spoke to were interested and engaged, and when they discovered the Memorial was more than just a row of gravestones they promised to visit!"

Hosts WonderWorks advertised the event as a chance for visitors to “immerse themselves in the story of the Battle, in a part of the country that would have been witness to much of the Battle during the summer of 1940”.

Barry (left), Sam and Adrian