(27th Feb - 1st March 2009)
PFBC initiated its first History Weekend at Lake Club, in the Lake Area of Hamworthy, Poole. This Celebration was held in association with an annual event provided by Robin Culpan as the owner of Lake Yard, in which he puts on public display a collection of photos & some artefacts relating specifically to the history of the former Dorset Lake Shipyard, and for in general. The significance of the Lake Yard to PFBC is that it is adjacent to the site now as the ATURM, that was formerly RAF Hamworthy constructed during 1942, and which became the home base for RAAF 461 Squadron with its 10 Sunderland Flying Boats of Group 19 Coastal Command, followed in April 1943 by 210 Squadron with a dozen Catalinas and a detachment at Gibraltar. Subsequently, this site was subsumed by HMS Turtle in preparation for D-Day, before passing to Transport Command with its Sunderlands, 24 of which were converted as passenger aircraft as the Hythe Class operating nominally from Poole long distance to the Far East and Australia. These were also used to bring home to the UK via Poole many injured former prisoners of war. Finally, the site became one of three repositories for BOAC’s Flying Boats when their services were discontinued in November 1950, and a dozen aircraft were brought on shore to eventually be sold-on, or in most of the cases to be dismantled for scrap used locally in the metal industry: Used in the manufacture of light-weight metal containers (potentially purchased by Max Factor for their cosmetic business within Poole ending up as powder compacts and tubes for lipsticks, also the Poole companies associated with the productions of lighting /electrical components etc. The final one of these Flying Boats broken up at Lake was a Sandringham 5 G-AHZA Penzance in March 1959 exactly 50 years ago, in leaving G-AHIU Solway and G-AKNS City of Liverpool drawn up onto the foreshore down-harbour at Lower Hamworthy awaiting their inevitable fate ! PFBC Friends volunteered for the rota from Friday evening 27th. February to Sunday 1st. March and took it in turns to welcome those many local people who turned up at the event, and visitedour exhibition when they showed great interest in the 8 large Display Boards with lots of photos. These depicted the History of the Flying Boats and the Seaplanes at Poole from September 1939 with the arrival of IAL, then BOAC until the transfer back to Southampton Water in April 1948, through to the last remnants, interspersed with a little text highlighting certain significant aspects.
