Statement

[Peter Laidler]

When I was a little boy in the early/mid 50's, I lived at Chiseldon and we would walk/ride our bikes over to the old base at RAF Wroughton a mile or so away. There were hundreds of bombers all around the perimeter fence in various stages of being scrapped and broken up. Mostly heavy stuff like Halifaxes and Lancasters and some Lincolns that were white painted. They are the only ones I can recognise today, being one of the '....they all look the same to me' aeroplane types. The planes were flown in on a daily basis and also brought in on big low loaders. One such broke free and rolled down the hill into the village destroying houses and cars as it did. There was no real 'fence' as such at Wroughton. It was all open countryside. My friend from school who lived closer than me brought in a rubber handled fire/escape axe that he'd taken from a wreck. I swopped it for something and it had a crown over an AM mark. My dad pointed out one of the big ones that had a big lifeboat slung underneath it. The first thing they did was to cut the legs off so that they fell to the grass ready for chopping up

This is how the big scrap merchants Coopers of Swindon started