大象传媒

I have a Carfield motorcycle which I obtained on my 50th birthday in October 1985, it's condition being a 'basket-case'. The motorcycle was used by an RAF man during 1943-44 and was stored for forty years in the roof of a barn at Westfield Farm, Shilton, which still stands and is part of the WAAF Camp.

Farmer Osmond Baston told me that the bike had been owned by an RAF man who used it to ride around the airfield. This man flew out on 'D' Day and never returned to collect it. I asked Osmond if he would sell me the bike, but as a God fearing man he said 'I cannot sell it to you, because it doesn't belong to me' and then he turned round and said 'But I will give it to you'. So I took a tractor and trailer full of firewood to him in return.

During the years that followed I spent many happy hours in my garden shed rebuilding the complete motorcycle, but I had no saddle, the tank was incorrect being a Rex Acme saddle tank, and should have been a coffin shaped flat tank. On returning to the barn in 1987, and with permission from Osmond's niece, the owner Mrs Janet Whitfield I carefully sorted among the old arable farm relics and came across a bicycle with a sack over it. I lifted the sack and 'Lo and behold'there was the original 1923 saddle. To top this, when I spoke to Janet in the farmhouse she told me she had found a Lucas bulb horn alongside Osmonds bed a few months after his death in hospital.

On June 6th 1987 the anniversary of 'D' Day, I drove the restored motorcycle back to the Broadwell control tower which was derelict and window-less, climbed the steps to the top, looked out to the horizon in all directions my senses stirred hoping to hear the sound of a returning Dakota with its Horsa glider in tow, one of the fifty that flew as part of the invasion force and the men of 6th Airborne Division, who flew from this transit camp and never got back.

One permanent Military Policeman known as "Wrecker" Broom(e) also stationed at RAF Broadwell rode a motorcycle and sidecar and is said to have lived in Stratton St. Margaret, Wiltshire, where he owned a smallholding. "Wrecker" used to visit farmer Osmond Baston for many years after the War, but I was unable to locate him. Maybe he would have liked to see the "Blue Print" of the layout of the WAAF site, which I found tucked into the roof joist in the main building in 1987

As the June sun shone bright on that beautiful summer's day I looked and listened with a fervent longing for the unknown serviceman to return and find his bike carefully restored and waiting. My thanks for his gallant risks to protect and preserve our country.

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