Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History Bidston Aerodrome

Well, if he is DD's son, he wasn't taught grammar and spelling like wot his dad woz.
BTW, pddjnr; text speak is not encouraged, especially on the History forum. Also, it isn't polite to jump in and rubbish other people's serious work.

Actually its my great great grandfather

Ah, before the days of compulsory schooling; that explains it.

You, and your information, might get a better reception if you weren't so aggressive.

Airships? Why would we have airships here? It was a gun site, plus a number of pill boxes and other emplacements. Some of us are old enough to remember them. The troops toilets were left after the war for the use of trippers for a while. Re your time team theory, before it was anything, part of it was a race course. Leasowe castle allegedly being built for the viewing of! Certainly the Duke of Monmouth came here to watch the races whilst his army were attacking Chester during the civil war.

I personally don't care what's in the dictionary, there is no excuse for bad spelling and grammar. If one must use text speak then one should stick to texting.

I think people using ipads with predictive text etc, also plays a part in some of the grammatically poor posts we get on Wiki nowadays.

As for the aerodrome, I can't say I know much about either its history or it's original location but it crossed my mind that if we were talking about it having been located near the Docks Station (rather than Bidston Station) perhaps the disused Wirral Agricultural Showground may have been a potential site. Or would that have been far too small?

Airships were going to be the big thing for long distance travel. The old man told me about a Zeppelin in the 30's cruising along the line of Birkenhead docks and Liverpool afterwards, apparently they took lots of intelligence pics, some goodwill visit I don't think. They obviously had plans about WWII. If my dad wanted to show me aircraft in the 40's/early 50's we had to go to Hooton, vaguely remember Pussmoths from that time.

The aerodrome location is well documented including actual posters that it was by Bidston station.

The gun emplacements are still there and pictured elsewhere on this site as are many other ww2 structures on the Wirral and beyond.

I once saw the 101 in Birkenhead some years ago.

Well, okay, I was at Woodside Bus Terminal waiting for a number 10 to New Brighton when up pulled this bus with 101 on the front. I was just wondering to myself whether or not it was actually the bus I wanted, when one of the inspectors ran over from the office and shouted to the driver "Oi, Bill. Fix your number mate, that's a bus you're in charge of not a bleedin' Zeppelin!"

This is a great piece of work. Well done lads! I just wish it had come to a concrete conclusion (no pun intended).

I asked mum (now 94 and very alert) about an airfield at Bidston, and especially about airships. She laughed very loud at the suggestion of airships, saying that as children ANY such thing seen in the area would have made a lasting impression. NO AIRSHIPS - other than the R101 which she does clearly remember.

As for an airfield with prop driven aircraft - there she has just a vague memory tempered with some confusion because she (and all the other kids) knew that Ward used to fly planes and they were used to that. However, sometimes "different" planes were seen - and they simply presumed it was Ward or his friends. Hence, no specific knowledge of a Bidston site.

Snod

Bidston Airfield was a permanent camp during World War 1 . Has anyone thought
to look in Wartime editions of Birkenhead News or other papers of the time?
I have a long newspaper cutting about the death of Corporal Quayle-originally
of Douglas I.O.M. He was wounded in the arm by another Serviceman at the camp.
Corporal Quayle had his arm amputated but unfortunately an infection set in
and he died about 2 weeks later. This was in either 1916 or 1918 -can,t remember
exactly when and the NEWS cutting is somewhere in my collection !!

There was a little on this in the wallasey memories facebook page

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...=o.146671052051601&type=1&ref=nf