the presentWhere the past touches

How this book came about - or nearly didn’t.

I had originally planned to put up an exhibition in Bampton’s Vesey Room showing pictures I’d taken of disused RAF bases over the past ten years. I cheerfully agreed to the suggestion without even thinking to check I still had the photographs. I’d spent many happy and thoughtful Saturdays crawling around derelict buildings and walking down runways that hadn’t heard a propeller since 1947. I had masses of pictures.

Only, I hadn’t. When I went to sort through the images, I realised that I’d lost nearly all of them. Pictures of RAF Broadwell, Grove, Akeman Street, Southrop, Windrush, Stanton Harcourt - all the local bases I’d wanted to feature. They’re all easily reachable from Bampton, so they were perfect. But they were also missing.

Opening a bottle of wine and sitting down with my head in my hands, I realised what had happened. I’d sent my old laptop back for a minor repair, thinking I’d backed up all the files on it . I hadn’t. I’d forgotten to back up my “images” folder. Initial panic, followed by realisation that I’d have to go back and re-take them all. Five years’ worth of photographs.

So, during what passed for the Summer of 2012, I’ve revisited each of the bases I’d originally planned to feature.

I’ve been amazed by how much has changed.

Bases where I’d been able to walk freely are now behind barbed wire fences. There was more vandalism, more graffiti. Perhaps these were the reasons for the barbed wire.

Some buildings have completely disappeared - the control tower at RAF Chipping Norton, for example, is now a pile of hardcore.

Some had decayed to a point where they were barely standing.

Others are partially demolished. I can often see the bricks rolled into tracks or used as foundation hardcore. It seems such a shame. Not that these bases should be left unaltered, but simply that, to me, they deserve marking in some way.

That’s what I hope to do, in some small way, with this book.

8 8 o 8