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Buscot
Buscot maps
Historic maps of Buscot and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Buscot maps
Buscot area books
Displaying 1 of 7 books about Buscot and the local area. View all books for this area
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Memories of Buscot
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Oxfordshire memories
My Maslen Ancestors
My great-grandparents were married at Little Coxwell 1864 and my grandfather was born there in 1864 also, my great-grandfather was called John Maslen and his wife was Jane (nee Haines), they had come over from the Wanborough/Bishopstone area of Wiltshire, perhaps looking for work as John was a farm labourer. My grandfather was also called John. I am coming to Little Coxwell shortly to see the church they were married in and my grandfather was christened in.
2nd Battalion, Parachute Regiment
My Father tells me that there was an airfield at Watchford and that the Paras used it as a drop zone in the 1950's. Taking off from Abindon, they would drop at Watchfield. My Father did his night drop here and said that the staff on the ground would leave the hanger doors open with the lights on so that the young paras could just see enough to assess how much the wind was making them drift. Does anyone have photos of this aspect of lift in Watchfield. There is no mention of Watchfield in current aeronautical charts. Your Watchfield, NAAFI Corner photograph suggests some military ties. I would be interested to learn more.
Paras at Watchfield
Hi Alan, I can confirm that there was a military airodrome at Watchfield. I remember watching from a distance as learner paras jumped from a baloon basket. The baloon was let up to a great height and the men in the basket jumped out one by one.
Tony Stayne
Paras at Watchfield in The 1950s
Yes, I lived on the Watchfield housing estate from 1952 to 1953. Large numbers of paras and their equipment were dropped regularly at the airfield. Trainees jumped from large silver barrage balloons, but experienced paras from aircraft, often dozens at a time. The equipment canisters, jeeps, etc., came down with colour-coded parachutes. It was famously one of the sites used in the making of the film "The Red Beret", sometimes retitled "Paratrooper", starring Alan Ladd, Leo Genn & Harry Andrews. There was a small Army base nearby where my father, a REME staff-sergeant worked maintaining all the paras' equipment, such as the sprung-bases the jeeps landed on. A few years ago, I met a retired SAS chap who told me he had done jumps from a Blackburn Beverly aircraft over Watchfield around that time. There was no Watchfield School in those days... we Army "brats" had to walk or bus into Shrivenham... older kids went to secondary school in Farringdon. For the Coronation, there was a huge party in the... Read more
Paras
Hi,
My father was stationed at Arnhem Camp in the 1960s, he was a paratrooper. The Paras at Watchfield were 16th Parachute Heavy Drop. I attended Watchfield Primary School and have fond memories of my time there, two teachers stand out in my mind, Mrs Late and Mr Biggs. In my day the village had a Jet petrol station and next door to that a small shop called Smiths, the shop was managed by Mrs Paige. Up by the Eagle pub was the Post Office and a shop called Geoffries. Watchfield was a great place to live for a young boy and we would often go "all the way to Shrivenham" (a distance of a mile or so) or wander around Beckett Lake and the R.M.C.S (Royal Military College of Science)
Great days.
2nd Airborne Company RAOC
Hi I was at Arnhem camp in 1958/59. This was where the heavy drop platforms were rigged with Landrover+trailer, before being transported to Abingdon airfield. There they would be loaded into a Beverly aircraft (with the boom doors removed). The RAF would then fly back over Watchfield and drop the platforms on the DZ at Arnhem Camp. I now live in South Australia, on a trip back to the UK in 2009 it was sad to find not much is left of the camp, but it was good to have a pint in the old pub. Happy Days.
Watchfield/Naafi/Aerodrome Notes
This was the NAAFI shop that served the military quarters at Watchfield, which housed the then many miltary and civilian staff of the Royal Military College of Science, and some of the students at the college, many of whom were from overseas.The RMCS is now the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom and is multi-service. I am not a native, so to speak, of Shrivenham/Watchfield, but lived in one or the other for a total of 52 of my now 60 years. My father was RSM F J (Jim) Hodder, posted to RMCS in 1956, he was RSM until 1962 then stayed on as a civilian until retiring in 1978. We lived firstly in 31 Faringdon Road for a few months, but shortly moved to 4 South Street where we lived until 1975. You can still see the Christmas tree that my sister and I planted in the back garden, now about 40 foot high. I stood next to it only today, from the back field (25th March 2012).The NAAFI underwent... Read more
