Ullenwood from the air, 1990

Click on the photo to enlarge

I've been saving up this wonderful 1990 shot of Ullenwood Camp from the air which Phil kindly sent me some months ago.  From the angle of the shadows it was taken when he flew over the camp during the early evening, I should think at about 6:30 p.m. ish.   Five weary diggers can be seen trudging back over the fields, one in Greenway Lane and half a dozen in the camp itself, including a couple outside the mess hall and one approaching the Ablutions block.  There's a lone horse and rider in the lane as well, just arriving level with Dorm 3.  Within the camp itself are 21 cars, the Yellow Bus containing the mobile exhibition at the far end of the car park, and a couple of dozen tents in two groups.  The hangar, the bunker, the mess hall, Lofty's house and all the huts and the dormitories show up very well. I'd forgotten that the dormitories all had small roofed porches at the entrances.  A Phillpotts photo of the city of tents, taken during the same season, is here.

Life at Ullenwood 6: the discovery of poison gas ...

My appeal for Crickley and Ullenwood memories has elicited the following gem from Malcolm White. Thanks, Malc:

"Does anyone remember finding the poison gas? It happened when a group of us were clearing out the Civil Defence hut at Ullenwood for use as a dorm or storage hut. Unfortunately I can't remember which year it was but almost certainly some time in the 80s.

 

Many odd and interesting things were found in that hut, gas masks and gas mask filters, a map showing fallout levels for a 1 megaton bomb dropped on GCHQ, a Civil Defence Volunteers flag (which I had and used at Glastonbury rock festival as a sunshade until my rats ate it) and then there was the poison gas.

 

We unearthed two small display cases. Both were about 9 inches square and about 1 inch deep. One was made of plastic and the other wood with glass fronts. Inside were 6 glass phials with various liquids inside. I recall Mustard Gas and BBC (Bromobenzyl cyanide?). When Phil turned up we rather hastily (and carefully) gave him the cases and washed our hands of the responsibility.

 

The story then becomes third hand as far as I'm concerned. But from what I was told, Phil took the cases to the police station in Cheltenham where the officer behind the reception desk asked "Are they dangerous then?" to which the reply was "That's why I'm standing by the door!"