There are some beautiful images of Kielder Water and surrounds and some great pictures that make it very clear that a very good time was had by all!

These can be seen in the Gallery on the BADER BRAVES page on the Website. Please click HERE to go straight to the Gallery Page and then click on the Gallery Link.

You can also see them underneath Keith’s previous REPORT by clicking on the link.

Do let us know if you’d like a copy of any of the photographs shown.

Kielder Water - Mirror calm

The BADER BRAVES Winter Wonderland Weekend, held at Calvert Trust, Kielder, Northumberland over the weekend  (27th – 29th January), was a sparkling success in every way. From the frost on the ground to the enjoyment of the Braves and their carers and families.

There was an excellent response to this event resulting in a lovely diverse group. New friendships were made, new challenges undertaken and a lot of fun had by all amongst some of the most beautiful and spectacular scenery in the country.

There will be a full report to follow very shortly so keep watching these pages but, in the meantime, here is a video from David Bickers, CEO of the DBF, who was not only there for the event but celebrated his birthday as well. (I won’t give away his age though.) Keith Delderfield, the DBF Director of Operations, just managed to make it home by a whisker to celebrate his on Monday. (I definitely won’t be divulging his!)

We’d also love to hear from any BRAVES, their carers or family members. Please send us your reports and photographs so that we can put them up on the Website to show those who weren’t there what they missed!

Please click on the link to see David’s video. He’s getting so good at this we’re expecting to see the Oscar nominations come rolling in….

* Click here: WINTER WONDERLAND *

The Douglas Bader Foundation is extremely grateful to all at the Calvert Trust, Kielder for looking after everyone so well and for giving the BRAVES a weekend to remember.

Our thanks also to all those who attended. You made the Event what it was.

There are a few places remaining on our fantastic Bader Braves Winter Wonderland Weekend at Calvert Trust, Kielder, Northumberland from Friday 27th – Sunday 29th January 2012.

This promises to be a wonderful experience with plenty to do for the whole family as well as presenting the opportunity to experience the superb venue and magnificent scenery in the depths of winter.

We can’t promise you snow but we can pretty much guarantee you a weekend to remember.

Don’t miss out on this great opportunity. If you’d like to book a place or find out more about the weekend, contact Keith Delderfield now by emailing: douglasbaderfdn@btinternet.com being sure to add “Winter Wonderland” in the Subject Box, telephone him on 01442 826662 or write to the Douglas Bader Foundation, 45 Dundale Road, Tring, Hertfordshire, HP23 5BU

Please click HERE to download a printable version of this Flyer to give to your friends or to display where it might attract other BRAVES

We’ll keep you updated as to his progress but feel sure you’ll join us in wishing this inspirational man the best of luck and success in his latest challenge for a brilliant and very worthwhile cause.

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DBF Ambassador Phil Packer, MBE

Phil Packer MBE has embarked upon a mammoth 2,012 mile walking challenge, starting at Chichester College, which will see him travel right across the country.

The former army Major who lives in the Chichester area will be walking the distance through every county in Great Britain which will see him finish in London in December.
The aim is to raise awareness for the British Inspirational Trust which supports young people facing adversity, and the need to build a Centre of Inspiration Excellence for the trust which will cost £15m.
Phil, the founder of the Brit, suffered severe spinal cord damage in 2008 and was told it was highly unlikely he would walk again.
Over the course of the year he will make his way through locations chosen by young people in every county of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, including Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.
On the way, he will meet many of Great Britain’s youth who are facing physical and mental adversity, from community groups, schools, colleges and charities who will join Phil at the chosen locations where he will walk.
“The BRIT 2012 Challenge is the biggest I’ve undertaken and it is meets every principle my charity and I believe in,” he said.
“I’m asking 2012 businesses to pledge their financial support to share the costs to build the BRIT Centre. This means schools, colleges and universities can register for the BRIT 2012 Challenge to simply acknowledge and raise awareness of young people facing adversity by completing their 2012 miles as teams rather than fundraising.
“As part of the challenge I’m asking the British public to support their chosen charities by registering for the BRIT 2012 Challenge as teams or individuals.
“The BRIT 2012 Challenge is free to take part in – every penny goes to chosen charities and those charities do not have to pay costs to hold a fundraising event.”

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Find out more about the challenge, and what Phil has been up to in the Observer on Thursday, January 26.

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Please click on the photograph of Phil to visit his Website where you can find out more

Two of our new Douglas Bader Foundation Ambassadors, Margaret Biggs (Maggz) a b/k amputee, and Wyn Jenkins an a/k amputee, are cycling enthusiasts who already have quite a few thousand miles – and the occasional sore bottom, I’m sure – under their belts.

They are very keen to get a DBF Cycling Team together in much the same way as we have our loyal Team Bader running supporters. They are currently contemplating the many races and events on offer for 2012 and ear-marking some that might be suitable.

Maggz is also rebranding herself as DBF’s own Stella McCartney and overseeing the design of a very cool Team Bader Cycling Kit which can be worn by our intrepid supporters. This kit will be SO cool that you’ll want to be seen wearing it even if you hate cycling!! (Well – that’s one incentive to get fit and join “DBF Team Velo”…)

Cycling DBF is very much in its early stages but we are very excited about it and do hope that lots of you will join Wyn and Maggz on one or more of the rides and perhaps even introduce some fund-raising rides of your own. Joining these rides will be a great way of raising funds for the charity thereby supporting a very worthy cause and of bringing the Douglas Bader Foundation to the attention of others and spreading the word.

Cycling is a wonderful sport for amputees and, by joining one of these rides, you will not only get fit and reap the benefits of the exercise (great for circulation) but you are pretty much guaranteed to make some new friends  at the same time. Cycling DBF is about encouraging participation in the sport, there will be something for everyone – cyclists of all abilities and at all stages of their cycling career will be welcome.

Listed below are some suggested events. These ARE only at the “potential” stage at the moment as Team DBF rides but, if you see one that appeals to you geographically or otherwise, do please get in touch so that we can turn the potential into a reality.

FEBRUARY:-
NW WINTER SERIES – HQ Poynton Leisure Centre, Stockport
http://wintersportiveseries.blogspot.com
Event 1 Sun 12 Feb – 27/60 miles
£15 / EOL £20
Event 2        26 Feb     30/50
£15 / EOL £20
MARCH:-
JODERELL BANK CLASSIC
http://joderellbankcyclosportive2012.blogspot.com
Sun 11 Mar – 25/50/80 miles
£15 /£25   EOL £20/25/30
Manchester (TBC)
CTC NORTH WEST SPORTIVE AND CHALLENGE RIDE
http://ctcchallengerides.co.uk
Sun 18 Mar – 75 miles
£17/27      EOL £22/32
WIGGLE CHESHIRE CAT
http://kilotogo.com
Sun 25 Mar – 100/74/45 miles;
£33/30/22.50
APRIL:-
PENDLE WITCHES VINTAGE VELO
http://pendlewitchesvintagevelo.co.uk
Sun 8 Apl – 53/13 miles
£15/5
THREE SHIRES SPORTIVE – Buxton
http://www.threeshiressportive.co.uk
Sun 22 Apl – 100k
£15     EOL £20
WRYNOSE OR BUST – Army training camp, Lancaster
http://wrynose.org
Sun 29 Apl – 112/60/37miles
£33/27/25
MAY:-
BANK HOL W/E Sun 6 May
FOREST OF DEAN SPRING CLASSIC SPORTIVE - Monmouth Showgrd
http://www.wheelsinwheels.com
89 miles
£30      EOL £35
PRESELI ANGEL – Newport
http://www.velo-teifi.org.uk
40/80 miles
£10/15 EOL £13/18
ISLE OF WIGHT RANDONEE
100k

AMPUTEE GAMES – Stoke Mandeville
Sat/Sun    12/13 May

To register your interest or find out more, please contact Maggz directly in the first instance by emailing:leggz.space@rocketmail.com

The BADER BRAVES Young Aviators’ Days have been an enormous success since they became part of the Douglas Bader Foundation strategy to help children with amputations and other disabilities and their families.

Last year we held 9 of these immensely popular events and this year, despite the Olympics and the Paralympics, we intend to extend that.

We are continually adding to our list of participating airfields so that we can broaden our scope across the country and offer more BRAVES what is often their first experience of flight in a light aircraft.

This is a wonderful experience for the BRAVES and the joy and satisfaction they get from it is evident from the photographs and testimonials. It also provides a great day out for the families and carers.

We are currently planning our Young Aviators Days Programme for 2012 but you can expect to see your favourite venues and some new locations as well.

Please keep checking the BADER BRAVES Young Aviators Days Page for more information.

Not only have we been in existence now for almost 30 years following the charity’s inception after the death of Sir Douglas, 30 years ago in September this year (no mean feat for a small charity) but, during that time, we have gone from strength to strength with new initiatives and help for amputees and other disabled.

We recently incorporated BADER BRAVES, a joint acknowledgement of Sir Douglas Bader’s honourary Chieftainship of a Canadian Indian Tribe and the bravery of children with limb deficiencies and other disabilities specifically to help children. Our BADER BRAVES Young Aviators Days are already a proven success with a programme increasing every year and we’re broadening the BRAVES line-up to include more Adventure Weekends and many other activities and opportunities.

We have enlisted new DBF AMBASSADORS, thereby broadening the team and the support, advice and service we can offer.

Thanks to one of these Ambassadors, Margaret Biggs, and some loyal participants, the Limb Loss Information Centre Forum (reached either though the DBF or LLIC Websites) is now widely held to be one of the strongest and most successful in the amputee community. As well as being a communication centre, the Forum gives the opportunity for amputees, those with limb deficiency or their families, friends or carers, advice, support, or simply a sympathetic ear from people who have first hand knowledge and experience.

For one-to-one communication, we have our already popular LimbLine run by Leggz and available through the LLIC Website. Leggz will either be able to offer you advice herself or will put you in touch with someone who she feels may be in a better position to help. The DBF will, of course, endeavour to do the same if you contact the charity direct.

With another of our Ambassadors, Wyn Jenkins, the DBF is intending to create a Peer Support Programme, an ambition dear to Wyn’s heart and certainly an enterprise that we know Sir Douglas would back wholeheartedly as well. He spent many hours and travelled hundreds of miles to visit and encourage amputees and other disabled people and it was as a result of literally sackfulls of letters received following his death by those he inspired with his motto: “an amputee who fights back is not handicapped but inspired“, that the DBF was created in the first place.

The LIMB LOSS INFORMATION CENTRE, an online resource created to guide individuals with congenital or acquired limb loss and their friends, family and carers through the emotional, physical and psychological process of coming to terms with limb loss, was set up in 2005 by the Douglas Bader Foundation with the help of the Sir Jules Thorn Charitable Trust. We are about to revamp  this Website to bring the information up to date with some of the amazing advances and developments in both medicine and Prosthetic Technology and the opportunities that offers for amputees and those with limb deficiency. In the meantime, we hope that you will still find the information on the site comprehensive and useful but, if there is anything you can’t find or feel should be there and isn’t, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us so that we can put you in touch with the right person to help. We are always delighted to have your input and positive suggestions.

We are going into 2012 with more supporters than ever and plan to make this a bumper year for the charity. The Bader Braves Young Aviators Day schedule will soon be announced and we already have a Winter Wonderland Adventure Weekend set up for Braves with more to follow as well as a variety of sporting events and challenges that you can become involved with.

Several of our Ambassadors have exciting ventures planned or in the pipe-line for 2012 and we will keep you informed so that you can support them and thereby the DBF. With 2 of the Ambassadors being keen cyclists, we anticipate a flurry of cycling events to support or participate in so keep watching this space! Designs for a cool DBF Supporters Cycling Kit are already underway…

You can find out more about all the aspects of the Douglas Bader Foundation mentioned above through the various pages of the Websites or, for any information you can’t find, by contacting us direct.

However…We need your help. The Douglas Bader Foundation relies almost entirely on donations to continue our vital work on behalf of amputees and other disabled so do, please, keep supporting us.

Your Support

You can do this by sending in donations or organising events etc. to raise funds. We will always be happy to offer advice and support with events you organise on our behalf and will be able to publicise them on the Website. You can also participate in other organised events, which will be posted on the Website hopefully in plenty of time for you to get fit and enter for! We are also delighted to have your participation and support in the form of ideas and suggestions and, of course, input to the Website in the form of relevant stories and photographs etc..

We look forward to hearing from you and to your participation in 2012. Please help us to continue our positive start to 2012 and to make this the charity’s best ever year.

Thank you from all at the Douglas Bader Foundation

CALLING ALL BRAVES!

There are a few places remaining on our fantastic Bader Braves Winter Wonderland Weekend at Calvert Trust, Kielder, Northumberland from Friday 27th – Sunday 29th January 2012.

This promises to be a wonderful experience with plenty to do for the whole family as well as presenting the opportunity to experience the superb venue and magnificent scenery in the depths of winter.

We can’t promise you snow but we can pretty much guarantee you a weekend to remember.

Don’t miss out on this great opportunity. If you’d like to book a place or find out more about the weekend, contact Keith Delderfield now by emailing: douglasbaderfdn@btinternet.com being sure to add “Winter Wonderland” in the Subject Box, telephone him on 01442 826662 or write to the Douglas Bader Foundation, 45 Dundale Road, Tring, Hertfordshire, HP23 5BU

Please click HERE to download a printable version of this Flyer to give to your friends or to display where it might attract other BRAVES

Celebrity faves: David Shearer

DAVID SHEARER - Labour leader Photo / Sarah Ivey

What is your favourite book?

This would have to be Douglas Bader’s Reach for the Sky, the life story of the RAF pilot who lost his legs, became a POW and was eventually knighted for his work in helping others with disabilities.

Why?

It was the first “adult” book that I read. I would probably have been around 10 at the time, and for a young kid it was a hugely exciting read. Here was a guy who was a real war hero – he lost his legs, he was imprisoned in Colditz, he made numerous escape attempts. And after his release he went on to do exactly what he wanted to do. Derring- do and heroism at their best.

How many times have you read it?

Numerous times, as a kid.

What is your favourite movie?

I don’t have a favourite movie as such, but one that stands out is The Lives of Others. It’s a German film about a Stasi officer during the Cold War who is forced into spying on people, until he discovers, for want of a better word, his humanity.

Sadly the lead actor [Ulrich Muhe] has died.

Why?

It’s a great film – thought-provoking and compelling – about a man torn between his conscience and ideology.

Captain Beighton, of Radbrook Green in Shrewsbury, was injured in a blast in the notorious Helmand province in October 2009.

But after being encouraged to take up rowing as part of the military’s ‘Battle Back’ initiative, which supports injured soldiers, he is eyeing the possibility of collecting a medal at the London Games next year.

The former Radbrook Primary School and Meole Brace Secondary School pupil said the sport had given him a renewed purpose in life following the injuries he suffered.

He is now going through an intensive training programme, which sees him in the gym or on the water two or three times a day for six days a week, in an attempt to secure a place in the Great Britain rowing squad for the Paralympics in the adaptive trunks and arms mixed double scull event with Sam Scowen.

Captain Beighton, 30,  said: “Every day, we have to tell ourselves that if we are tired, we just have to keep push ourselves that little bit further.

“Ours is one of the most competitive classes. The six teams that reach the final will be very closely matched, so we are going to have to be on the top of our game.”

The soldier needed 36 pints of blood in transfusions to keep him alive after he trod on an improvised explosive device.

But he said that he was still determined to make the most of every opportunity that comes his way.

“How I live my life is that you have got to look for the positives. Getting blown up and losing my legs is a pretty horrendous thing to happen but you have to learn from it and take the positives,” he said.

Captain Beighton said that despite being a Shrewsbury lad and growing up close to the River Severn, he had never taken up rowing in his younger years.

But he said he was now hoping to do Britain proud in the Paralympics after discovering a natural aptitude for the sport when he took it up 18 months ago.

He said: “It was 60 years since the Olympics were in London and it might be 60 years before the next time, so it is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

From the Shropshire Star

You are an inspiration, Nick. With your courage, determination and “Bader Spirit” you deserve to succeed. We all at the Douglas Bader Foundation wish you the very best of luck in achieving your goal.

By SIMON TOMLINSON

The Row2Recovery crew photographed before their departure from La Gomera this morning (5/12/11)

A group of British servicemen, including four amputees, will tomorrow embark on a gruelling challenge to row the Atlantic.

The six-man team – of whom four lost limbs during service in Iraq or Afghanistan – will leave La Gomera in the Canary Islands tomorrow heading for Barbados.

The journey of around 3,000 miles, hoped to take 40-50 days, will see them spend Christmas and several of their birthdays on the high seas.

The team will row ‘self-supported’, so must take no support or accept any items on board as soon as they leave the starting port.

They will have to alternate between hours of rowing and two-hour rest spells in the cabin of the specially-tailored boat, dealing with anything from torrential rain to gale force winds and bright sunshine.

Dubbed Row2Recovery, the challenge is the brainchild of three former British Army commanders who trained together at Sandhurst and also served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ed Janvrin, Alex Mackenzie and Tony Harris saw friends and comrades suffer life-changing injuries, while Mr Harris lost his left leg when an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) detonated under his vehicle in Afghanistan in May 2009.

Able-bodied ex-captains Janvrin and Mackenzie, 32 and 33, will join four injured servicemen on the challenge.

Lieutenant Will Dixon, 27, was a platoon commander with Third Battalion, The Rifles, when he stepped on an IED in Sangin, Afghanistan, 10 days before Christmas 2009. Surgeons at Camp Bastion performed a below-knee amputation on his left leg.

Corporal Neil Heritage, 31, was a member of the Royal Signals bomb disposal team in Iraq when a suicide bomber detonated a device a few feet away in November 2004, when his wife was six weeks pregnant with their second child. He needed double above-knee amputation and doctors initially predicted he would never walk again but he is now a school athletics coach.

They will be joined by Corporal Rory Mackenzie, 30, a medic who was on a routine patrol in Basra City in January 2007 when he was blown up by a roadside bomb which traumatically amputated his right leg. He now works as an instructor at Keogh Barracks, teaching fellow medics.

Lance Corporal Carl Anstey, 26, is also taking part in the challenge – a member of First Battalion, the Rifles, he was hit by the blast from a rocket-propelled grenade in Musa Qala, Afghanistan, in January 2009, the day after his 24th birthday. The damage from shrapnel shattered his femur and severed his sciatic nerve and surgery left his right leg almost two inches shorter than the left and he needs a leg brace to walk.

The group has already raised £601,000 – and at the end of the challenge the total cash raised will be distributed between three key military charities: Help for Heroes, the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association (SSAFA) and ABF – The Soldiers’ Charity.

After months of preparation, they are ready to leave tomorrow, said Row2Recovery spokesman Sam Peters.

Speaking from La Gomera today, he said: ‘It’s just a case of sorting out the final details really, making sure everything’s packed and all the food’s there and the safety equipment, and all the communications equipment.

‘We think it will take between 40 and 50 days. They are ready to go, I think they are all really just desperate to get going.

‘Some of the guys have been building up to this for well over a year. The training has been done, the eating has been done, they have been eating pizza and beer – they need to put on some weight, they’re expected to lose up to 25% of their body weight. Some of them will come back looking pretty thin.

‘There’s a great team spirit and they have really really bonded together, they are a really, really impressive bunch of guys.’

The six-man team are expected to leave La Gomera tomorrow at 12.30pm – there is currently no time difference.

Details on the challenge will be posted on its website on www.row2recovery.com

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* All at The Douglas Bader Foundation wish Row@Recovery the best of luck with this inspirational challenge and the success that your courage and determination deserves. We know that Sir Douglas would approve wholeheartedly and be with you in spirit all the way. *

* We will be following the team’s progress on their journey to Barbados, so please keep checking in for updates *

By Steve Wilson
Published on Thursday 24 November 2011 14:00

A Havant couple saw their hopes of international glory dashed, after they fell at the final hurdle in their quest for a coveted title.

Hazel and Ron Quarrington secured their place at the Bader Cup international final in Portugal after coming through two qualifying rounds to book their place at the Alamos Club on the Algarve.

Ron and Hazel Quarrington either side of Portsmouth Lord Mayor Cheryl Buggy

The tournament is an annual competition for couples all over England, Wales and Scotland in aid of the Douglas Bader Foundation named after the World War II veteran who became a single-figure golfer, after losing both legs in a crash.

The Foundation has now raised £350,000 to help people with missing limbs and other disabilities in its 24 years.

After the Havant couple won their own club competition with 43 points in the greensome format, they then came through a regional qualifier with a fine performance, clocking up 37 points to claim their final berth.

But while the Portsmouth Golf Club duo’s total of 32 points was some way behind final winners, Sue Anderson and John Loye from Crondon Park Golf Club with 43 points, Hazel, 52 and Ron, 53, have vowed to make sure they get another crack next year.

Hazel said: ‘It was a good four days and we really enjoyed it.

‘We couldn’t bring the trophy home unfortunately, but maybe next year.

‘It was well worth entering. We will definitely go for it again next year.’

After 23 years of glorious sunshine for the event, this year’s final was a different experience as rain dampened the course.

Hazel, who plays off an eight handicap alongside 17-handicapper Ron, said: ‘It rained on the practice day and then rained for most of the round on the competition day so that made things that bit more difficult.

‘The course was good but the greens were really tricky and we found it quite hard.

‘But it was still enjoyable and it’s a very good cause.’

The 2012 tournament will be extra special as it will be the silver anniversary of the Bader Cup.

It costs just £10 per couple to enter and the more UK clubs that take part, the more money is raised.

See thebadercup.co.uk for an entry form for the 2012 competition.

Algarve Property & Golf Magazine

Bader Cup has raised £350,000 in 24 years

Sir Douglas Bader, the British World War II flying ace who lost both his legs but went on to play single figure handicap golf, would be 101 if he were alive today.  And if he were alive today he would be very proud, because in the 24 years of the Bader Cup tournament, the Douglas Bader Foundation has raised £350,000 to help people with missing limbs and other disabilities.

The Bader Cup is held every year with clubs from all over England, Wales and Scotland taking part.  The winners then compete in twelve regional finals with the finalists enjoying an all-expenses-paid trip to the Algarve in November.  The generous sponsors are Monarch Airlines, the Tivoli Lagos Hotel and Morgado do Reguengo Golf.

The Bader Cup 2011 Winners: Sue Anderson & John Loye from Crondon Park Golf Club

The 2011 final  was won by Sue Anderson and John Loye from Crondon Park Golf Club, who achieved 43 Stableford points in the Greensomes Grand Final on Morgado’s Alamos golf course on November 9, both playing off a handicap of 15.

“We only came fourth in the first round but managed to ‘nobble’ the couples in first, second and third place in order to play in the regional final”, joked Sue.  In one pairing, the wife had to have an operation, another contender got injured playing tennis and a third had a clashing engagement.

The 2012 tournament will be special as it will be the Silver Anniversary of the Bader Cup.  The Bader Cup costs just £10 per couple to enter and the more UK clubs that take part, the more money is raised.  If your UK Golf Club is not aware of the Bader Cup, why not give details to your Club Captain or Secretary?

See  www.thebadercup.co.uk for an entry form for the 2012 competition. We will have one on the Douglas Bader Foundation Website shortly.

* Please click on the link to go to The Bader Cup 2011 Final Page, where you will be able to see a full report, photographs and download the results of the Tournament *

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This is a fantastic achievement and The Douglas Bader Foundation is deeply grateful to all who have taken part in, been involved with, organised and sponsored the Bader Cup over the years.

A full response will be found on the Final Page.

(You will find a link to the Bader Salver Final Results page underneath the article and photographs)

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Abbotsley is “Abs Fab” for 2011 Ladies Salver Final.

The Bader Salver 2011 Finalists

Finalists from throughout the UK gathered on Friday 16^th September at the magnificent Abbotsley Golf Hotel near St Neots, Cambridgeshire to compete for the Bader Ladies Trophy. Ten pairs of lady golfers having qualified at one of the regional finals that had been staged over the previous eight weeks were joined by the defending champions from Edenmore Golf & Country Club in Northern Ireland, Heather Patterson and Louise Gaw.

Abbotsley Director of Golf, Christine Langford, had arranged a fun competition for Friday afternoon which gave everyone the opportunity of meeting one another and getting to know their way around the excellent Abbotsley Course which had been beautifully prepared and presented by the green staff for the competition. It certainly presented a tough challenge to the group with, as always, some coping with the blustery conditions better than others. As play for the day came to a close everyone had the opportunity to sample the social facilities of our generous sponsors and hosts and in the department everyone coped very well and by the close of play were pretty much completely oblivious of the conditions.

Saturday morning started with very promising weather but by the time the first of our teams tee’d off at 11.00 for the official practice round the clouds had gathered and the first three matches set of in very wet and miserable conditions. However, as play progressed things picked up nicely and within an hour the players were enjoying some great golfing conditions which were reflected in some very impressive scoring. With the first tee time for the final again being at 11.00 on Sunday, Saturday evening was a somewhat more subdued affair with none but the hardy few (or super confident) taking full advantage of the two bars on offer.

And so Sunday dawned and suddenly the importance of the day was evident. The defending champions playing with markers from Abbotsley, General Manager Helen Lavis and club member Marie Bayes, led the field off in splendid conditions. It was clear from the word go that a good score would be required to take the 2011 title and after the first few holes it seemed that scoring was going to be tight between all of the competitors. As the players passed through the 9^th, most taking advantage of the “Halfway House” catering facilities, tensions were building and nobody was giving much away. Sadly towards the end of play the rain started, not pouring, but heavy enough to make conditions for the last couple of holes to be “uncomfortable” particularly for the later starters. The short 18^th proved a great test of nerves and a great challenge for a closing hole – a big decision as to whether to give it a go over a pretty intimidating pond or to take the safer route and lay up. Everyone had their own strategy and quite a few suffered the same fate of taking to the water!!

But, of course, there will always be a winner and for the first time the Salver is returning to the winning region and is going back to Northern Ireland; not just to Northern Ireland but even to the same club as the previous champions. With a super score of 42 points Stephanie Watson and Karen Legrand are taking the trophy back to the Edenmore Golf and Country Club.

The weekend was brought to a close with an excellent presentation dinner and a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

The worthy winners of the Bader Salver 2011, Stephanie Watson and Karen Legrand

And so the 2011 Final drew to a very satisfactory conclusion. We are indebted to Vivian Saunders, Proprietor of The Abbotsley Golf Hotel and to Christine and Helen for their superb hospitality and magnificent and generous sponsorship of our tournament. There is no doubt that The Abbotsley Hotel and its two super 18 hole courses provide a brilliant venue for events such as this and is just a great place for a golfing break.

Lastly, but not least, our thanks go to John Southwick and Pat. As always John has worked tirelessly to ensure that everything ran so smoothly and everyone at The Douglas Bader Foundation, particularly those that the charity supports through its work, are more than grateful for John and Pats enthusiasm, loyal  support and contribution that results from their effort.

Down the 3rd!

Between the trees...maybe!

The winners in action: Stephanie Watson and Karen Legrand, Edenmore Golf and Country Club

* Please click on the link to go to The Bader Salver Final  Abbotsley Golf Hotel – Results Page where you will be able to see a report by John Southwick, the Tournament organiser and download the results in full. *

Published on Monday 19 September 2011 08:37 by Portsmouth News)

TENS of thousands of spectators and competitors at the Goodwood Revival were transported back to the dark days of the war when 10 Spitfires took to the skies for a memorable flypast.

The iconic fighter planes scrambled en masse yesterday at the motor circuit near Chichester – which used to be the wartime airfield RAF Westhampnett, from where heroes including Douglas Bader took off to play such a crucial role in winning the Battle of Britain.

The display was delayed by heavy rain, but then the sun came out and the clouds lifted enough for the Spitfires to get airborne to commemorate the 75th anniversary since the very first one flew from Eastleigh airport.

As the Band of the Royal Marines played down on the track, the combined roar of the Merlin engines overhead was something to behold.

The 10 planes that flew in formation was believed to be the highest number that had been seen at one time since the Second World War.

Goodwood owner Lord March told the big crowds: ‘The Spitfire was, and remains, an absolute thoroughbred. Rarely can a design team produce something that not only is right but looks right.’

He added: ‘Production continued for 12 years until 1948 and the surviving aircraft are a monument to all those who built, maintained and flew them.’

The other highlight at the third and final day of this year’s Revival meeting was an action-packed, two-driver RAC TT race, featuring exotic closed cockpit 1960s GT cars worth a combined £200m and piloted by a host of famous names.

Eight-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen and his team-mate Kenny Brack emerged victorious in their Shelby Cobra Daytona, with F1 commentator Martin Brundle and Mark Hales second in Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason’s Ferrari 250 GTO.

The drivers had to contend with a downpour mid-race that caused standing water and great plumes of spray. Crowds watched from beneath a sea of umbrellas as the field used all their skill to stay on the Tarmac and avoid collisions.

Brundle said: ‘You couldn’t see anything out there, but I really enjoyed it.’

Celebrities soaking up the atmosphere included DJ Chris Evans and chef James Martin.

Evans smiled: ‘This event is unbelievable. The girls love all the dressing up and the boys love seeing the cars.’

(No sexism there then, Chris! – WMcC)

A WOMAN who has had her leg amputated from above the knee is taking part in a three-day London to Paris charity cycle ride.

Gemma Trotter, 29, from Smallfield near Horley, will be taking part in the 300km bike ride with 19 other amputees.

She is hoping to raise £3,000 for Limbpower, Douglas Bader Foundation and the Limbless Association.

Crawley company Squirrel Financial Planning has purchased a new sports bike for Gemma and will be kitting the whole team with clothing.

Gemma said: “In addition to supporting these three charities, we are keen to make other amputees aware of what they can achieve by taking part in a sport. Many are interested but reluctant and hold back because they are unsure of how or where to start and have absolutely no idea of the benefits and rewards.”

Following a family car accident in Belgium when she was just 14-, Gemma feels extremely lucky to be alive and not paralysed after her left leg was shattered into more than 50 pieces and her neck broken in three.

Jayne Wildish, director Squirrel Financial Planning said: “I met Gemma at Nuffield Health gym in Crawley and was so impressed with her determination to help others and encourage them to take up some form of sport that we decided to sponsor her.”

The Douglas Bader Foundation is extremely grateful to Gemma and all who are taking part in the London to Paris bike ride on behalf of the charities involved. We wish you all an enjoyable and memorable trip and look forward to hearing about it on your return.

Adam Layer

“I am very proud to be an ambassador of the Douglas Bader Foundation. I have been drawn into the world of aviation head first, and have felt first hand the ecstatic feeling of being in the air above the earth, and taking control of a light aircraft. By giving young people in difficult circumstances the opportunity to do this, the Foundation provides them with an experience they will never forget. I remember after my first flight, thinking; ‘if I can do this, I can do anything”. I have been inspired, and I hope many more children can be.”

Adam Layer. Amputee, Aircraft Engineer and Ambassador.

Team Bader before the race (but after the doughnuts). From left to right, Sophie Delderfield, Emma Rance, Ellen Doyle (soon to be Delderfield) with Tessa Barfield standing just behind Thunderbolt and Lightning

Among the 15,000 women who lined up at the start of the Adidas Womens 5k Challenge at 11.00am on Sunday 11 September in Hyde Park, London, were six brave beauties who have so far raised over £600.00 for the Douglas Bader Foundation.

Bader vets, Jess Delderfield and her sister Jill Jeffery, along with two of Jess’s daughters, Tessa and Sophie were joined this year by daughter-in-law elect Ellen (Ellen has now been part of the Delderfield clan for some 25 years one way or another, but paperwork and formalities are not due to be finalised until July 2012!!). This was Ellen’s first ever race since finishing a credible second in the year three egg and spoon race at Tring School some years back.

This year Team Bader has been privileged to have another virgin Bader runner in the shape of family friend Emma Rance who mistakenly thought that when she signed up for a ladies only event it was a hen night!! Ellen and Emma finished their race in a very credible 33 minutes and so enjoyed the experience that they have already signed up to join Team Bader in the 2012 British 10k Road Race next July.

Seasoned athletes and sisters, Tessa Barfield and Sophie Delderfield both put up very good race times although neither achieved their best probably due to the conditions and the curry the night before. Mother of two, Tessa completed the race in 26 minutes whilst despite not being quite as fast this year, her 20min 50sec time put Sophie in a magnificent 37^th place.

Bringing up the rear of Team Bader were our two Bader Seniors, Jill Jeffery and her elder sister Jess Delderfield. Both have been fantastic supporters and fund raisers in these events for many years now and are always looking forward to the next event. After the race Jill said that she was rather disappointed with her time and “I know that if I had started earlier I could have finished sooner!!!”

The picture at the top shows Team Bader before the start having just had coffees and doughnuts at the Lido Café in Hyde Park. They are, from left to right, Sophie Delderfield, Emma Rance, Ellen Doyle (soon to be Delderfield) with Tessa Delderfield standing just behind Thunderbolt and Lightning. (Sadly, after having been vetted by the website moderator, we were not allowed to publish the photograph taken at the end of the race in case it frightened some of our younger viewers or those of a nervous disposition!!).

You will gather that whether a serious runner or just wanting to take part and help the charity raise some funds, everyone has a great morning with lots of laughs. Everyone at the Foundation is indebted to the girls of “TEAM BADER” and grateful to each of them for their loyal support and fund raising effort on behalf of the charity.

Keith Delderfield

* If you would like to be part of “THE TEAM” at future events, then contact Keith on 07831 596015*

Emma Rance and Ellen Doyle (soon to be Delderfield) see off the competition

Sophie sprints for the line

Tessa sees the finish in sight

Bader Seniors Jess and Jill surge past the field

Wendy McNay and Dale Christie from Banchory won at PITREAVIE GOLF CLUB on the 1st September with 43 pts (24 B9) and Stephanie Watson and Karen Legrand from Edenmore won with 40 pts at the Regional Final played out at EDENMORE GOLF AND COUNTRY CLUB on the 9th September .

Congratulations to the winning pairs who both have something special to celebrate as well as their wins. Wendy McNay and Dale Christie won their Regional Final despite only coming 3rd when they competed in their own Golf Club’s qualifying round. Luckily for them, neither of the 1st 2 pairs were able to attend the Regional Final and Wendy and Dale certainly made the most of their opportunity! Stephanie Watson and Karen Legrand made it a home team win for Edenmore with their victory and, unlike another home team winning pair, are fortunately able to reap the rewards of their victory by attending the Grand Final at Abbotsley Golf Hotel.

Our thanks to all the participating Golf Clubs and all those players who took part. Congratulations, of course, to the winners and we hope that those of you who weren’t victorious this time will return to battle it out for the Salver again in 2012.

The Bader Salver raises a considerable amount of money for the Douglas Bader Foundation so, after a lamented absence of the competition, we are very grateful to The Abbotsley Golf Hotel for stepping into the breach and sponsoring it this year. We are sure that all the Grand Finalists will have a wonderful stay there during the finals and will enjoy the fantastic facilities on offer whether they win or lose.

Without the sponsorship, the participating Golf Clubs, the players and, of course, the tireless organisers, John Southwick and Pat, there would be no Bader Salver and we are extremely grateful to you all.

You can see all the results and other information on the Bader Salver Regional Final Results Page by clicking HERE.

Congratulations to the winners, Christine Clarke and John Plunkett from Deer Park who won with 44 pts and will be joining the other winners for the Grand Finals in the Algarve.

Many thanks to all the participating Golf Clubs and players who took part in all the Regional Finals this year. We wish all the winners a very enjoyable Grand Final and hope that those who didn’t win this time will be back to challenge again in 2012.

Every year the prestigious Bader Cup competition raises a considerable amount of money for the Douglas Bader Foundation and we are very grateful for your participation.

Our thanks also, of course, to John Southwick and Pat for all their hard work in organising and running the competition. Without them there would be no Bader Cup.

* You can see all the results and see more information on the Bader Cup Regional Finals Results Page by clicking HERE *

Remarkable Mandy Sellars remains upbeat despite having one of her legs amputated – because it kept on growing.

She suffers from a condition similar to Proteus Syndrome, which was the same illness that affected Elephant Man Joseph Merrick.

It means all of her fat is stored below her waist and in January last year Mandy had to have her left leg removed because of a life-threatening cellulitis infection.

The operation took six-and-a-half hours and she had to stay in hospital for five months afterwards.

The 36-year-old told This Morning: “I had kind of prepared myself as the doctor told me it was me or the leg, and I didn’t want to die.

“The weight of my leg was just increasing really quickly and it was causing infection after infection and it was getting really difficult to walk.

“I thought that maybe life would be better without the leg, and that’s why I had it removed.

“People are always going to remember me whether they speak to me or not because obviously I do stand out in the crowd, but that’s not a bad thing.”

She also spoke about why she only had one leg removed, rather than both.

“Simply because if you’ve got one leg left it’s easier to transfer from the wheelchair to the bed to the sofa. If you don’t have both legs, then you need hoists to move yourself around the flat, and that would make living really, really difficult,” she said.

Three years ago she told The Mirror (click HERE for a link to the original article) how she was travelling to the States to try and find a cure, but that failed to offer any hope.

The former voluntary worker for the RSPCA from Accrington, Lancs, has a fantastic bunch of friends who help her, but she does worry about the future.

She added: “The stump is growing in size, it just will not stop. I think the last time it was measured it was a metre in circumference, and that’s going to get bigger and bigger.

“There’s nothing that can be done, I’ve had liposuction in the past, and that just seemed to stimulate the growth.”

She is now undergoing pioneering medical research with doctors in Cambridge who hope that one day they will find out exactly what her condition is, and devise treatment that will stop her legs from growing.

“It’s scary for the doctors as they don’t want to do the wrong thing, I just live day-to-day, and maybe in the future something will come around to help with my condition.

“But not so I look different, I don’t mind the way I look, I like it! But just for health reasons really.”

“I consider myself lucky that I have the condition as it has opened doors in my life that would never have opened if I had been the average person.”

Mandy is now raising awareness of Proteus Syndrome so that people will not be so shocked by her appearance and that one day there may be a cure.

Please click HERE to see the original article with pictures of Mandy talking to Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford on “This Morning”

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Your attitude is an inspiration, Mandy. All at the Douglas Bader Foundation wish you the best of luck with your medical treatment and search for awareness of and hopefully one day a cure for Proteus Syndrome.

* Voting Open Now Until August 28 at www.Facebook.com/CourageInSports

* 2011 America’s Choice Honoree Announced on CBS Nov. 13

CHICAGO – St. Olaf College senior Adam Starr, a lifelong gymnast and All-American high school diver who lost his leg to cancer in 2009, is nominated for the America’s Choice Honor for Courage in Sports, Intersport announced today. The America’s Choice Honor is wholly determined by fan voting and will be announced on a one-hour “Courage in Sports” special airing at 5 p.m. ET Nov. 13 on CBS.

Each week for eight weeks, two inspirational athletes will be featured on the Courage in Sports Facebook page (www.facebook.com/CourageInSports). The top weekly vote-getter will proceed to the finals, which begins Oct. 17, and the overall winner will be announced as the 2011 America’s Choice Honoree on CBS Nov. 13.

Starr, a 21-year-old pre-med student, became an Internet sensation this summer after posting a video to YouTube of his first day back in the gym after two years of rehabilitation. To see his incredible video, go to http://youtu.be/bQTpLVvAdm8.

The other week one nominee is Eric LeGrand, a Rutgers University football player that suffered a severe spinal injury after a devastating hit in October of 2010. LeGrand is now inspiring his teammates from the sidelines with his intense will to persevere and eventually walk again.

To support Starr or LeGrand, fans can vote as often as they would like and can share their vote with Facebook friends. Week one voting opened today and ends Aug. 28 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

About Intersport

For 25 years, Intersport has been an award-winning innovator and leader in the creation of sports and entertainment based marketing platforms. Intersport provides turnkey solutions for global brands by combining two award-winning divisions: Sponsorship & Event Marketing and Television & Digital Media.

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Adam Starr has appeared previously in our News Posts. To see the original post (which also features Adam’s video), please follow the link:

/2011/08/08/amputee-adam-starr-returns-to-the-gym-see-his-film-and-be-inspired/

The Douglas Bader Foundation wishes you the best of luck, Adam. You’d be a worthy winner.

The Regional Finals of the prestigious Bader Cup are being played and we have some more results.

All the results will be added to the Bader Cup Results Page so please keep checking in. You will find the direct link to the page below.

The Winners will travel to the Algarve to battle it out for the cup between the 6th and 10th November.

The Douglas Bader Foundation is, again, deeply indebted to our wonderful sponsors, Monarch Airlines, Tivoli Lagos Hotel and Morgado do Reguengo. Also to John Southwick and his partner, Pat, for organising and running the competition, which annually raises a considerable amount of money for The Douglas Bader Foundation.

• BIRCHWOOD GOLF CLUB (Cheshire) – 15/08/2011

Winners: Lucy Eaton and George Grant from Skipton who won with 39 pts

• Many congratulations to the winners and to all who took part. We hope those of you who didn’t win this time will be back next year to challenge again.

* Please click HERE to go to the Bader Cup – Regional Final Results page where you will find more information and links to all the results *

The Bader Salver is back with new sponsors, the Abbotsley Golf Hotel, who will be hosting the Finals. (A treat in store for the finalists…)

We’ve just received the latest results from the Bader Salver Regional Finals:

• BENTON HALL GOLF & COUNTRY CLUB (Essex) – 10/08/2011

Winners: Lynne King and Bridget Hendry (Menzies – Cambridgeshire) who won with 40 pts (20 B9)

Many congratulations to the winners and to all who took part. We hope that those of you who didn’t win this time will be back to challenge for the Salver next year.

* The DOUGLAS BADER FOUNDATION is extremely grateful to all the participating Golf Clubs, the competitors and, of course, Abbotsley Golf Hotel and John Southwick, the organiser. Without you all, the competition and the important funds it raises to enable the charity to continue its valuable work on behalf of amputees and other disabled, couldn’t happen.  *

Please click on the link to go to the Bader Salver Regional Finals Results Page where you will find links to these and previous results in full and more information. The page will be updated as new results arrive so do keep checking in.

Despite warnings of poor weather for our Bader Braves Young Aviators Day at Seething Airfield, a previous WW2 bomber station that had been home to 63 B-24 Liberator aircraft of the USAAF 448^th Bombardment Group (Heavy), Sunday 7^th August dawned bright and sunny and continued in that mode throughout the day. Despite being fairly “blustery” all of the Bader Braves in attendance were given a truly memorable day that put a smile on every face around.

The last of the Liberators departed in July 1945 and have now replaced by a vast assortment of light aircraft all in private or club ownership and all perfectly lined up in the early morning sunshine awaiting the arrival of The Braves. At 10.30 arrivals started and the 60 volunteers from the club including ground marshals, stewards, caterers, meters, greeters, check-in staff, caterers and, of course, pilots all under the wing and superbly organised by Steve Hiscox, sprung into action and within ten minutes the first Braves were airborne heading towards Lowestoft where they crossed the coast before turning towards Yarmouth from where they went on over the Broads in the direction of Beccles and returning to our Seething home for the day.

For those waiting on the ground for their flight there was much to see and do. Steve and his team had organised a whole load of fun and attractions; WW2 vintage military vehicles were there to give those Braves who wanted, a trip around the airfield, one of the members made his AC Cobra available for a pretty swift sortie along a disused runway. There were rides on one of the Seething Airfield fire appliances and loaned golf buggies provided transport to and from the waiting aircraft; the Control Tower Museum was open to visit, a face painter did a first class job of turning Braves into pirates, ladybirds, spacemen and a whole range of other characters whilst Mr Jugglefun kept everyone, young and old, thoroughly entertained throughout the day.

The weather held fair enabling everyone to collect their pic-nic bags and all join together on the grass at lunch time where the Braves were able to mingle with the pilots, fire & rescue team and the whole ground crew and pick their brains about aeroplanes and flying.

At the end of the day when everyone had taken their flight – even two or three in some cases – we were treated to the arrival of two magnificent vintage Mustang aeroplanes that dropped in en route to their home base following the completion of a display in Kent; it was a truly spectacular sight and a special treat when we were all invited to have a closer inspection of them and photograph them. And so, around 5.00pm, the day drew to a close, cars were loaded and the Braves bade farewell to Seething after a fabulous, perhaps tiring, but terrifically successful day.

There are so many people to thank; Baker & Larners of Holt who provided some of the picnic ingredients and who have made The Douglas Bader Foundation, and particularly Bader Braves, their charity of the year, Andrew Weatherly who generously provided all of the golf buggies for the day everyone who kept the Braves entertained throughout the day and, of course, Steve Hiscox without whom none of this would have happened, along with all of our magnificent friends at Seething Airfield – Thank you all for a super day.

* There are now some wonderful new photographs by Simon Finlay in the Bader Braves Gallery. Click on the Bader Braves Aeroplane to fly straight there:

All the results will be added to the Bader Cup Results Page so please keep checking in. You will find the direct link to the page below.

The Winners will travel to the Algarve to battle it out for the cup between the 6th and 10th November.

We are, again, deeply indebted to our wonderful sponsors, Monarch Airlines, Tivoli Lagos Hotel and Morgado do Reguengo. Also to John Southwick and his partner, Pat, for organising and running the competition, which annually raises a considerable amount of money for The Douglas Bader Foundation.

• NORTH DOWNS GOLF CLUB (Surrey) – 09/08/2011

Winners: Gill Hawker and Ian Hawker (Oak Park) 45 pts

• PILTDOWN GOLF CLUB (East Sussex) – 10/08/2011

Winners: Hazel Quarrington and Ron Quarrington (Portsmouth) 37 pts

Many congratulations to the winners and to all who took part. We hope those of you who didn’t win this time will be back next year to challenge again.

* Please click HERE to go to the Bader Cup – Regional Final Results page where you will find more information and links to all the results *

We’ve just received the latest results from the Bader Salver Regional Finals:

• Bedale Golf Club (Yorkshire) – 3/08/2011

Winners: Trudi Galloway and Steffi Hay from Belton Woods who won with 40pts

• Hadden Hill Golf Club (Oxfordshire) – 8/08/2011

Winners: Catherine Daw and Evelyn Boswood from Bearwood Lakes who won with 40pts (19 B9)

Many congratulations to the winners and to all who took part. We do hope you’ll all be back next year to challenge again.

* The DOUGLAS BADER FOUNDATION is extremely grateful to all the participating Golf Clubs, the competitors and, of course, Abbotsley Golf Hotel and John Southwick, the organiser. Without you all, the competition and the important funds it raises to enable the charity to continue its valuable work on behalf of amputees and other disabled, couldn’t happen.  *

Please click on the link to go to the Bader Salver Regional Finals Results Page where you will find links to these and previous results in full and more information. The page will be updated as new results arrive so do keep checking in.

Great Day at Tangmere Military Aviation Museum on Sunday 7th August.  ’A Tribute to Douglas Bader ‘, held  just two days before the 70th Anniversary of Douglas’ last wartime active flight -  based at Tangmere, he took off from nearby West Hampnett and was shot down over France.

An early rainy and windy start turned into a sunny and very windy day. The two spitfires from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight sadly were advised of the 40mph wind which meant they were unable to attend. However the North American Harvard took advantage of the earlier favourable conditions giving a wonderful acrobatic display to the hundreds enjoying the day.

The Douglas Bader Foundation was delighted to be invited to be  there and show our first range of branded DBF and Bader Braves merchandise. Thanks to Pat Barnard of ARTTOFLY.ORG who donated a fine print, ‘The Tangmere Duel’  as a raffle prize signed by 4 Battle of Britain and four Luftwaffe pilots (including Douglas, and former DBF Trustees Johnnie Johnson, Hugh Dundas  as well as Adolf Galland) , we were inundated with interest, ticket and merchandise purchasers. The raffle winner Mrs Burleigh is shown with David Bickers.

The winner of the signed print kindly donated by Pat Barnard of ArtToFly, Mrs Burleigh, with the DBF's David Bickers

Our sincere thank you to everyone at Tangmere who put a wonderful Rememberance Day together and for all who attended as Exhibitors and Visitors.

David Bickers
Please click HERE to see a Flip Video by David Bickers

Some more pictures from the day:

[Show as slideshow]

Here as another antidote is a link to some DBF Film Clips showing the ongoing work being done in his name by the charity. His inspiration continues for so many.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjkVtgrgoIU

This time it was Janette Watson from Keswick Golf Club who scored a “Hole-in-One” at the Bader Cup Regional Final at Darlington Golf Club (County Durham) on Wednesday 3rd August. I understand that not only was Janette thrilled by her achievement – her 1st and hopefully not her last “Hole-in-One” – but that she very generously bought a round for the other competitors to celebrate! This was a particularly nice gesture as sadly, despite her efforts, Keswick didn’t prevail in the final which was eventually won by  Miss L.J. Curry and Mr. G. Curry representing Wearside Golf Club.

Many congratulations from all at the Douglas Bader Foundation, Janette. We hope this is the first of many!

Please click HERE to go to the news post about Cynthia Davies

You can go to the BADER CUP REGIONAL FINALS results 2011 by clicking on the link.

* We will add results as they come in so please keep checking the page for updates. *

Bader Remembered 70 Years on – Tangmere Museum

Tangmere Museum is holding an event on Sunday 7th August to honour the memory of Sir Douglas Bader. There is a lot going on and it promises to be an enjoyable as well as an educational day.

From the Tangmere Museum Website: “The theme of the Museum’s main summer event this year is ‘BADER REMEMBERED 70 YEARS ON’. It will be held on Sunday 7 August 2011 – watch the website for details. The Museum has also set up a BADER TRAIL around the Museum of artefacts and stories about the people associated with Douglas Bader during his time at Tangmere in 1941.” DAVID COXON Curator

On August 9th 1941 Group Captain Douglas Bader, the legendary pilot who overcame severe physical handicap (he had both legs amputated following a serious flying accident in 1931), was forced to bale out of his Spitfire over German occupied France and taken prisoner.  After several escape attempts, he finished up confined in Colditz Castle, where he and the other P.o.W.s were liberated by the advancing American armies in April 1945. Come along to Tangmere Museum on the 7th August and learn more…

You can check out the Tangmere Museum Website: http://www.tangmere-museum.org.uk/index.php for more details

Click HERE to download a poster with more information

Her dream, her decision, her faith and – now – her recovery.

At the age of 12, Alyssia Crook made the decision to amputate her left leg because she wanted to be free from life-long pain.

In May, the Hudsonville girl’s leg was removed.  The two months since have been filled with recovery, resolve and rehab.

Alyssia Crook’s long medical journey has been filled with painful, positive steps. But these steps are just another obsticle Alyssia will overcome on her road to being pain-free.

“I think she’s just goingb to take off,” said Karen Crook, Alyssia’s mother.

In 2003, Alyssia was living in a Ukranian orphanage, where she was found by Chad and Karen Crook. The couple immediately adopted her and flew her back to West Michigan.

Soon after, surgeons repaired her cleft palate, and life was good.

“While we were there, we began to notice some things abour Alyssia; some things about her leg,” said Chad Crook, Alyssia’s father.

Doctors then evaluated Alyssia’s leg and found a rare deformity, called Popliteal Pterygium Syndrome, which is a bundle of nerves, arteries and scar tissue from a prior leg surgery in the Ukraine.

The problem? As Alyssia’s legs grow, the bundle does not, causing sharp pain, inhibiting growth and compromising circulation.

On top of that, some doctors had this suggestion – amputate both legs at the hips.

“I figured it was hopeless,” said Karen Crook.

But a friend suggested Shriners Children’s Hospital for Chidlren in Chicago.

“In my 20-year career, I’ve probably seen three or four cases [like Alyssia's case]“, said Dr. Jeffrey Ackman, chief of staff at Shriners Hospital.

Ackman would fight to save the legs.

In between surgeries, Alyssia tried out for the school basketball team, staying active, but some problems kept resurfacing.  The surgeries were not getting the wanted results.

“They’re getting very, very, very concerned about her forming clots,” said Karen Crook.

All this left Alyssia this choice – shorten both legs eight inches, ending all impact sports, or amputate the left to save the right, and use a prosthetic.  Alyssia chose – amputation.

On May 19th, the operation began. The tension; the hours; the waiting would drag by, but when Alyssia woke up, the prognosis was good.

“I think the surgery went well,” said Dr. Ackman.

Ackman saved her leg at the kneecap which ended up being a better than expected result.

“I think she has all the factors both in terms of emotion and support,” added Ackman.

Alyssia now had time to recover, which didn’t last long.

Two months later, with some adjustments and tweaking, Alyssia took some new and bigger steps.

Today, Alyssia’s joruney is taking her to a life that’s finally pain-free.

By Brent Ashcroft

Click HERE to see previous stories on Alyssia

All at the Douglas Bader Foundation wish you well with your amazing recovery, Alyssia, and are so glad that you are now taking steps to a pain-free life. You’re doing brilliantly and we’re sure you’ll go from strength to strength and inspire others with your courage and positive attitude.

Tangmere Museum is holding an event on Sunday 7th August to honour the memory of Sir Douglas Bader. There is a lot going on and it promises to be an enjoyable as well as an educational day.

From the Tangmere Museum Website: “The theme of the Museum’s main summer event this year is ‘BADER REMEMBERED 70 YEARS ON’. It will be held on Sunday 7 August 2011 – watch the website for details. The Museum has also set up a BADER TRAIL around the Museum of artefacts and stories about the people associated with Douglas Bader during his time at Tangmere in 1941.” DAVID COXON Curator

On August 9^th 1941 Group Captain Douglas Bader, the legendary pilot who overcame severe physical handicap (he had both legs amputated following a serious flying accident in 1931), was forced to bale out of his Spitfire over German occupied France and taken prisoner.  After several escape attempts, he finished up confined in Colditz Castle, where he and the other P.o.W.s were liberated by the advancing American armies in April 1945. Come along to Tangmere Museum on the 7th August and learn more…

You can check out the Tangmere Museum Website: http://www.tangmere-museum.org.uk/index.php for more details

Click HERE to download a poster with more information

By Nick Squires, Rome

3:49PM BST 24 Jul 2011

Amateur historians using metal detectors unearthed human bones, an engagement ring and an inscribed watch at the site where the Douglas A-20 Boston bomber crashed.

It was brought down in flames by German anti-aircraft fire on the night of April 21, 1945, just days before the end of the war in Italy.

Three of the crew were British: Sgt David Kennedy Raikes, 20, the pilot; Flt Sgt Alexander Thomas Bostock, 20, the radio operator; and Flt Sgt David Millard Perkins, 20, the navigator.

A volume of Sgt Raikes’s work, The poems of David Raikes, was published posthumously in 1954.

Members of the RAF Volunteer Reserve, they were part of No. 18 Squadron, which famously parachuted a spare artificial leg to the captured Wing Commander Douglas Bader in occupied France in 1941.

The fourth crew member, Warrant Officer John Penboss Hunt, 21, the gunner, of Sydney, was an Australian seconded to the RAF. The wreck had been known about by locals and one of the aircraft’s engines was salvaged for its aluminium at the time.

But it was only recently that a group of Italian enthusiasts, from an association that searches for the remains of Second World War aircraft, decided to scour the site, near the town of Copparo, close to Ferrara.

They unearthed human bones, which have yet to be identified, a watch inscribed with WO Hunt’s name, and a gold engagement ring believed to have belonged to Sgt Perkins.

“We went into the field with a metal detector and almost immediately we found pieces of galvanized aluminium,” said Fabio Raimondi, one of the amateur historians.

The British embassy in Rome has been informed and is trying to confirm the identities of the airmen with the Ministry of Defence’s Historical Branch.

If the bones are confirmed as belonging to the crew, they will be given a ceremonial burial.

The Boston bomber was carrying out a raid on a river crossing on the Po, Taglio di Po, when it was hit by anti-aircraft fire. German forces in Italy formally surrendered on April 29, a week later.

All at THE DOUGLAS BADER FOUNDATION are extremely grateful to BAKERS & LARNERS for their support and look forward to working together in the year ahead.

All at the DOUGLAS BADER FOUNDATION are extremely grateful to BAKERS & LARNERS of Holt for their support and look forward to working with them in the year ahead.

Katie Tammen

Daily News

VALPARAISO — Ben Baltz is about to reach yet another milestone in his young life.

Nine-year-old Ben Baltz plays on his computer recently in his home in Valparaiso. Baltz was featured on a billboard advertisement in Times Square to promote childhood cancer research. Photo: Nick Tomecek - Daily News

He’s going to summer camp in Ohio.

The camp will not only give the 9-year-old plenty of opportunity to swim and canoe, but also test his sense of adventure with zip lines, rock walls and elevated obstacle courses.

What makes the upcoming camp special is not just the activities, but that every child attending, including Ben, is an amputee.

Ben was pleased to talk about the activities at the camp, but said it didn’t really make much difference to him that everyone there had also had a limb amputated.

“I think Ben is just looking forward to hanging out,” said his mother, Kim Baltz.

Ben’s right leg was amputated in March 2008 after he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer.

He was only 6 years old at the time. Kim said removing the leg and allowing him to get a prosthetic one made the most sense, given how much Ben enjoys sports and physical activity in general. If they had kept the leg, all he could have done was walk.

“He was our little athlete,” Kim said with a smile as she watched her son try to sit still Tuesday afternoon.

About two years after Ben was diagnosed and went through treatment, he was fitted with a carbon fiber running blade. The doors then just opened up for him.

He started running with his classmates in track and joined the PAL soccer team. The only trouble was the running blades couldn’t always keep up with Ben.

Since he received the first one in August 2009, he has gone through 10. Some broke while he was running, others while he was playing soccer and one while he was jumping, Ben said.

One of the most memorable times was when he broke one during a soccer game last fall just before he was supposed to compete in a triathlon.

Duct tape was used to try to hold it together.

“It made it through the soccer game, (but) failed at the triathlon,” said Ben, who then added with a grimace, “epically failed.”

But “light leg,” as he calls his regular prosthetic, doesn’t typically give Ben much problem, and most of his classmates at Lewis School no longer give it a second thought.

“The kindergartners and the first-graders are the only ones (who look at it),” Ben said. “They just stare at it and sometimes they ask a question, but I just ignore them.”

In fact, Ben can climb trees and bound around the yard with the best of them these days, and that’s exactly how his parents want it to be.

“When I look at Ben I don’t see that prosthetic leg, I honestly don’t,” Kim said. “He’s an able-bodied kid.”

Nine-year-old Ben Baltz climbs a tree outside his home using a carbon fiber blade prosthesis. Photo: Nick Tomecek - Daily News

His parents encourage him, just like their two older children, to go out and earn what he wants and not to see his prosthetic as a handicap.

At the same time, they don’t ignore it. Ben frequently visits with other children suffering from the same type of cancer to give them hope and show that limb amputation doesn’t mean life can’t be normal.

Because of his story and his clear determination, Ben was recently featured on an electronic billboard in Times Square in New York to help raise awareness and money for childhood cancer research.

The billboard had a picture of Ben on his prosthetic leg after chemotherapy when he didn’t have any hair. The ad ran about every 40 minutes from April through June, Kim said.

The family took a trip to see the billboard, but Ben mostly shrugged it off.

“It was hard to get it right when it was on,” Ben said. “So we’d stand out there and wait until it’d come on.”

After they saw it a couple of times, Ben was done.

“I thought it would have been a lot longer,” he said.

As to what will come after camp, Ben’s trying to figure out a way to get involved in football and looking forward to the near future when he’s finished with follow-up visits with doctors.

For now, he’s still going every six months. Soon it will be only once a year, Kim said.

“And then we’ll be done,” Ben said as he picked up a football to go outside and play.

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All at the DOUGLAS BADER FOUNDATION wish you the best of luck, Ben. We’re sure that, with your courage, determination and gutsy attitude, you’re an inspiration to other children with cancer or who have had to have limbs amputated whatever the reason.

Read more: http://www.nwfdailynews.com/articles/doesn-42013-prosthetic-down.html#ixzz1Sj6wMbHr

Double amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius qualified for the athletics world championships, running his best-ever time in the 400 meters Tuesday in his last race before the cutoff date.

The legendary "Blade Runner", Oscar Pistorius has achieved his goal of competing with able-bodied runners

The South African — nicknamed “Blade Runner” — also moved a step closer to fulfilling his dream of competing in the 2012 Olympics after clocking a personal best of 45.07 seconds at a small meet in the northern Italian town of Lignano.

The 24-year-old Pistorius needed to run 45.25 — having never run faster than 45.61 — to qualify for the worlds for the first time. The championships begin Aug. 27 in Daegu, South Korea.

“So tonight was the last night to qualify,” Pistorius tweeted after the race. “Needed a 45.25 A standard, ran a 45.07sec! Thank you to my team.”

He wrote in another post: “Feels kind of surreal.. To have an A-qualification time in the bag for next yrs Olympic Games! Thank you all the your support!”

The time put him on track to achieve his ambition of competing at the Olympics and Paralympics in the same year, four years after he had to take his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to be allowed to compete against able-bodied athletes on his carbon-fiber blades.

“He’s over the moon,” Pistorius’ agent Peet van Zyl told The Associated Press. “I spoke to him before the race and told him ‘Listen, this is what it’s all about. This is what we fought the court cases for.’

“He said ‘All I can do is my best’ and I said ‘Your best is good enough.’ I spoke to him literally as he was coming off the track and all he said was ‘I did it.”‘

Having achieved the “A” qualifying time, South Africa now has to pick Pistorius for its team for the worlds and could also take him to the London Olympics, which he is also now eligible to compete in.

Pistorius gained international fame when he tried to qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He had to battle a ban by world athletics governing body the IAAF from competing in able-bodied races after his blades were deemed an unfair advantage.

He went to the Court of Arbitration and was cleared to run, but the legal process took a toll on his training and he didn’t come close to the qualifying time for Beijing.

Pistorius is the world record-holder in the 100, 200 and 400 for disabled athletes, and a multiple gold medal winner at the Paralympics, but has long wanted to run against able-bodied athletes at the Olympics.

Having missed out on the qualifying time at meets in the Czech Republic, France and Diamond League events in New York and Eugene, Ore., this season, Pistorius struggled to a time of 46.65 seconds in Padua, Italy, over the weekend. He looked way off the world championship qualifying pace.

It left him with the Lignano race to run his fastest time. His final race in Budapest, Hungary, on July 31 is likely too close to the Aug. 1 cutoff for teams to be finalized for the world championships.

In Lignano, Pistorius blew away the field to win by more than a second ahead of Jamaicans Lanceford Spence and Michael Mason.

“They have to pick him now (for the worlds),” Van Zyl said. “I knew this was coming.”

Pistorius only took up running as a teenager to help him recover from a rugby injury. He started training with a coach in 2004 and set his first Paralympics world record three weeks later. Eight months later, he won his first Paralympics gold medal in Athens.

Originally from the South African capital Pretoria, Pistorius had his legs amputated below the knee when he was 11 months old because he was born without shin bones.

“My mother was someone who never pitied the fact that I had prosthetic legs,” he told the AP in an interview in April. “As far as she was concerned, the only difference between me and my brother was that my brother put his shoes on in the morning and I put my legs on — and that’s it.”

Copy and paste the link to go to another CBS Article: Prosthetics Boost “Blade Runner”‘s Speed – http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/18/sportsline/main5696254.shtml

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DOUGLAS BADER FOUNDATION says: A fantastic achievement, Oscar. You are an inspiration and we will be behind you every step of the way. You thoroughly deserve this win and can at last compete where you belong with able-bodied runners. Another step closer to the Olympics and we fully expect to see you there.

It took one clinic for Castelli to run again. One session, after needing two months to learn to walk again. One session, after a year and a half of pain in her right leg that eventually led to a below-the-knee amputation. One session, after two years of a frustrating journey that followed an awkward slide into second base in a college softball game.

This was hardly the first — or the last — of the emotions. Watching their daughter run with her prosthetic leg that day in June 2010, the Castellis bawled.

“The light came on,” Pete Castelli said. “And of course, the people that ran the clinic were like, ‘Wow.’ We were in tears watching her run again — the fastest she ever did.”

One year after that clinic — organized by the Challenged Athletes Foundation — Denise Castelli, a Netcong native, sprinted along the nets of a side court in Flushing Meadows, chasing stray tennis balls during a U.S. Open ball girl tryout. Thursday, less than two years after the lower half of her right leg was amputated, Castelli will find out if she has been selected to work as one of 80 ball girls or boys for the country’s premier tennis tournament in August.

Castelli was one of two amputees to try out, part of an initiative developed three years ago by John Korff, director at-large on the United States Tennis Association board of directors.

“She’s clearly got the endurance, the strength and the presence to be able to do this in front of 20,000 people,” Korff said. “She’s the quintessential … spokesperson for something like this.”

She knew right away her leg was broken.

The University of New Haven had the April 22, 2008, game well in hand in the seventh inning, but Denise Castelli was one of the Chargers’ speediest baserunners.

With no outs, she got the steal sign. She took off for second, and broke into an awkward slide. Her right leg got caught under her left and she felt it snap. She crawled to the base before the tag, but she knew.

“Coach!” she screamed. “I broke my leg!”

She had no idea, though, of the complications that would follow.

It wouldn’t heal. Debbie Chin, New Haven’s athletic director, talked to Castelli periodically after she graduated. Each time, she was bewildered at how her leg wasn’t getting healthier.

In the year and a half that followed her injury, Castelli was in Morristown Memorial Hospital more than out. She saw specialist after specialist. She underwent 37 surgeries.

There was always another small problem, another complication.

“I remember different times when you hear promising news,” Pete Castelli said. “Her and I would high-five, or we’d feel that this would be the defining moment. It would finally be over and we were going to finally start to move forward.

“That just didn’t seem to ever come.”

Infection spread throughout her leg. Doctors couldn’t find the solution, and finally decided to amputate.
Pete wouldn’t be convinced so quickly. He went to Google, desperate for options he hoped could save his daughter’s leg. He called doctors at Columbia and Johns Hopkins before coming across a “limb preservation center” at Georgetown.

“Just the phrase itself,” he said, “seemed to give me hope.”

Doctors there determined the same fate. They amputated in two stages across 30 days so the infection wouldn’t follow their work. On Nov. 4, 2009, they completed the amputation.

“It was disbelief, you know?” Pete said. “How did we get here? From just a broken leg?”

WALKING AGAIN

Denise Castelli takes her first step on her prosthetic right leg. Photo Courtesy Denise Castelli

This moment was two years in the making. The moment Denise Castelli would be able to walk freely again.

She was nervous to receive her prosthetic leg — yet anxious. She was certain some sort of normalcy would return to her life — yet all the details seemed so uncertain.

What is it going to feel like? What if I fall? Is walking really going to be walking?

When she got to Metro Brace and Limb in the Bronx, she bypassed someone who offered to take her coat. Castelli’s prosthetist, Jorge Gonzalez, put a walker near her chair for her to hold onto when she was able to stand up. He set up parallel bars in the hallway for her to hold onto while walking.

Castelli put on her prosthetic leg and let go of the walker. She walked into the hallway, confident enough to not use the parallel bars.

“It was … I’m going to cry,” Castelli said, recalling the day in early March 2010. “I don’t know. It was the moment I felt like … the moment I knew I was really going to be okay. I could do anything now. It was an incredible feeling.

“When you start walking when you’re a baby, you don’t remember. I’m sure your parents remember, but you don’t remember the first time you got up and took steps. For me, I really get to remember my second first time learning how to walk.”

For Castelli, the four months between her amputation and getting her prosthetic leg was the most frustrating period. That day, she walked again. Two months later, she ran at the CAF clinic in New York.

Soon, she started playing sports again. She tried softball again last summer, but that was ambitious. In the winter, she played volleyball in a West Milford parks and recreation league. This year, her confidence built to try again at softball.

“I feel like I am exactly where I was before I was amputated,” Castelli said. “Nothing has been stopping me. It’s a really cool feeling.”

A NERVOUS TRYOUT

Denise Castelli runs for the first time with her prosthetic right leg at Chelsea Piers in New York. Photo Courtesy of Denise Castelli

As Castelli ran along the net during her tryout, she concentrated hard. She was determined to prove she could perform as well as anyone else trying out.

“I feel like when someone with one leg falls, everyone gasps and looks,” Castelli said. “I was just nervous. I did not want to fall. That was what I kept telling myself.”

Her tryout came after Korff of the USTA reached out to local organizations including the CAF, looking for a below-the-knee amputee young woman between 20 and 25. And he wanted one that could throw.

Nancy Reynolds, the CAF’s director of development, had the perfect candidate. In early June, she sent an e-mail to Denise, who immediately accepted.

She didn’t prepare much. The night before her tryout, she went out and threw a tennis ball to get used to its weight. As she admits, the first couple throws of her tryout were “pitiful.”

She moved past the nerves soon. And she impressed. She retrieved one ball at the net before spinning 360 degrees to chase another.

She did everything but fall.

“When I was talking to one of my colleagues at the USTA,” Korff said, “I said, ‘Look. She’s going to end up working the finals on the stadium court.’ She was amazing.”

NEVER LOSING HOPE

Denise Castelli, of Netcong, trains on her prosthetic right leg at a Challenged Athletes Foundation clinic. Photo courtesy of Denise Castelli

There was a time, Castelli admits, when the thought crossed her mind. She was unsure if she’d ever walk again.

“When someone tells you they’re going to amputate your leg, you can’t really imagine,” she said. “Like, ‘Oh, I’ll be fine. I’ll be walking again.’ No. It takes time to set in.

“I don’t know if I ever lost hope completely, but I definitely was unsure for a little bit.”

Running was the same. Castelli recently applied for and was approved for a grant for a running leg from the CAF.

In her application, she wrote of her time at the clinic last June. Going in, she was skeptical. But she listened carefully to instructor Bob Gailey’s speech and tried to mimic the technique he showed the athletes.

“As soon as he allowed us to break out and fully sprint, I took off,” she wrote in the application. “I couldn’t believe I actually ran. I couldn’t believe I didn’t fall. I couldn’t believe how great it felt to feel wind brush against my face as I glided on the turf.

“From that point, I was determined. I left the workshop that day with something I thought I had lost forever: confidence.”

Brett LoGiurato: blogiurato@starledger.com

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We all at the DOUGLAS BADER FOUNDATION salute your courage, Denise, and wish you the very best of luck in your quest to be chosen as a ball girl at the U.S. Open. We’re sure you’ll succeed and know that Sir Douglas would have admired your spirit and would be behind you all the way.

The top award is the King Hussein Memorial Sword – presented in memory of the late HM King Hussein of Jordan, Patron of the International Air Tattoo (1983-1989) – and is awarded for the best overall flying demonstration.  This year it went to Maj Murat Keles, flying the F-16C “Solo Turk” from 141^st Sqn, Turkish Air Force.

Maj Keles said: “I am very happy. It is wonderful to receive this award in the first year of our display and in the same year as we celebrate 100 years of the Turkish Air Force.”

The sword was presented by Major General Malek Habashnah, Commander Royal Jordanian Air Force , on behalf of HRH Lt Gen Prince Faisal.

The Paul Bowen Trophy – presented in memory of The Royal International Air Tattoo co-founder Paul Bowen for the Best Solo Jet Demonstration – went to Capt Michael “Mikael” Brocard flying the Rafale C from EC01.007, French Air Force. The trophy was presented by Tim Prince, Director of the Air Tattoo and Chief Executive of the RAFCTE.

Capt Brocard said: “This is my first time at the Air Tattoo and my first display outside France this year, so to receive this award is fantastic. I hope I can return next year.”

The Sir Douglas Bader Trophy – for the Best Individual Flying Display – went to Maj Severino De Luca, Maj Francesco Ferreri and Chf Master Sgt Ugo Sabeni from Reparto Sperimentale Volof of the Italian Air Force, flying the C-27J Spartan.

Alan Smith, Chairman of the Royal Air Force Charitable Trust Enterprises, presented the trophy to the winning crew . Maj De Luca said: “This is so unexpected and an immense pleasure. I’m so pleased for myself and the entire team – it’s the greatest honour we can have.”

Seconds after receiving the Sir Douglas Bader Trophy, the same team were back on stage to be presented with the As the Crow Flies Trophy, voted for by the Friends of the Royal International Air Tattoo, and presented by Fred Crawley, Trustee of the RAF Charitable Trust.

Maj De Luca added: “We weren’t expecting to succeed so to get two exceptional gifts from the organisation is a great honour. It’s very not expected!”

Gp Capt Geoff Brindle, whose Air Tattoo roles have included Lightning Display Pilot and Flying Display Director, presented The Lockheed Martin Cannestra Trophy – awarded by Lockheed Martin for the Best Flying Demonstration by an overseas participant – to Maj Roland “Wally” Blankenspoor and Capt Paul “Wokkel” Webbink, flying the Royal Netherlands Air Force AH-64D Apache.

Maj Blankenspoor commented: “This is a real honour for the whole team, and I’m very proud of them all. This is not our regular job, performing as a display team, so I’m proud of the whole crew: it’s a nice reward for the team.”

The Steedman Display Sword – presented by The Royal International Air Tattoo in memory of the late Air Chief Marshal Sir Alasdair Steedman, Chairman of the International Air Tattoo (1981-1988), for the Best Flying Demonstration by a UK participant – was awarded to Mark Bowman flying the BAE Systems Typhoon FGR4.

Air Chief Marshal Sir John Cheshire presented the sword to BAE Systems Test Pilot Mark Bowman who said: “This award is testament to the efforts of the company and all the groundcrew that made the display possible.”

And finally, the Best Livery award went to Maj Ingo Heinle and Capt Rene Lorgen of  JBG 32, German Air Force with their Tornado ECR. They received the award from Gardiner Porter, Senior Manager, Military Global Sales for Jeppesen. Maj Heinle said: “The award belongs to the designer of our scheme, Joey. Thank you very much on his behalf.”

The spectacular show and static display included a number of military representatives from across the MENA region and saw crowds of more than 130,000 pass through to pay tribute to the world’s flying stars.

It’s never too late for one new old master

THERE are several words you might use to describe Leonard Bradbury. Survivor is one. Determined is another. He is also a successful businessman, a talented artist and, by his own admission, very, very lucky.

At the age of 88, Leonard’s artwork went on show in his very first exhibition at Batley Art Gallery last month – a fitting tribute to his Vera, his late wife of more than 60 years, who always told him he should not waste his talents.

NEW TRICKS: Leonard Bradbury who is on display at Batley Art Gallery, at work

Born in Leeds and brought up by his father in a small house during the 1920s depression, Leonard would draw on the kitchen cupboards with chalk.

As a young lad, he was drafted in to the army when the Second World War broke out and shipped off to Africa, where he fought in the successful Allied campaign. He was then posted to Italy but was soon captured and became a prisoner of war, being moved around to several camps in Germany and Poland.

Throughout it all, despite knowing there was a chance he might never see his loved ones again, Leonard was determined to take something positive from his situation.

He would draw pictures of fellow prisoners’ girlfriends for the camp currency – cigarettes – and would also produce cartoons at the expense of Hitler and the prison guards, much to the other prisoners’ amusement.

At first, Leonard would scrape the paint off Red Cross tins for colour, but was eventually able to get his hands on some proper materials thanks to his cigarette hoard, which enabled him to trade with the German guards.

It was during this time that he also came to the attention of legendary fighter pilot Douglas Bader. After he was captured by the Germans in 1941, Bader made several escape attempts and it was while planning one of these that he approached Leonard and brought him on to the escape committee to forge documents.

The attempt failed and Bader was eventually sent to Colditz, where he remained until the end of the war.

Leonard also spent some time incarcerated with two Disney animators who taught him how to draw characters such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, while he in turn introduced them to the joys of fine art. Towards the end of the war, he and the other men in his camp in Poland were sent on a ‘death march’ before they could be freed by the Allies.

However, during an attack on the roadside from a low flying aircraft, he managed to escape and he and fellow escapees lived like bandits until they were picked up by the Allied forces.

“I was very lucky,” said Leonard, from his home in Soothill. “I was in situations where people all around me were killed and I survived.”

When he returned to England, Leonard set up a painter and decorator business, pushing a home-built hand cart. He moved in to interior design and produced portraits for the Jewish community in Leeds.

He has also produced props for Leeds City Varieties and Yorkshire TV and eventually set up Bradbury and Son in Batley with his son Stephen, which still designs, produces and installs fine fireplaces to this day.

During his life, Leonard’s art has always taken a back seat to his working life. But when he retired at 76, he was able to spend more time concentrating on his painting.

The exhibition at Batley Art Gallery drew on his lifetime experiences and his love of painting. He has produced many portraits of the royal family and has also painted pictures of well-known personalities from the world of TV and music.

Leonard, who has two grandchildren, admires the old masters, particularly Francois Boucher from the Rococo movement, and has produced many works in homage to these. He is also currently working on a painting for the Royal Academy Exhibition in London.

“The Batley exhibition was my first one and I’ve probably left it a bit late, but I’m still ambitious and it would be nice to have some recognition for my paintings. It’s never too late to try!”

I’ve just received the following notification of the postponement of the above event from Keith Delderfield, the Douglas Bader Foundation Director of Operations (known to most of you already, I’m sure!). Please note the proposed new date.

“I am sorry to have to inform you that acting on advice received from the Management at White Waltham regarding a forecast  of poor weather for flying on Sunday 17^th July 2011, the Bader Braves Event has had to be postponed until Sunday 28^th August 2011.

I am sorry that this action is necessary but be assured that it has been reluctantly reached with the best interests of our young Braves in mind.

Again, my apologies for this postponement; I trust that you understand and appreciate the reasoning behind our decision and hope that you can make 28^th Aug!!”

Best wishes – Keith

From the Tangmere Museum Website: “The theme of the Museum’s main summer event this year is ‘BADER REMEMBERED 70 YEARS ON’. It will be held on Sunday 7 August 2011 – watch the website for details. The Museum has also set up a BADER TRAIL around the Museum of artefacts and stories about the people associated with Douglas Bader during his time at Tangmere in 1941.” DAVID COXON Curator

On August 9^th 1941 Group Captain Douglas Bader, the legendary pilot who overcame severe physical handicap (he had both legs amputated following a serious flying accident in 1931), was forced to bale out of his Spitfire over German occupied France and taken prisoner.  After several escape attempts, he finished up confined in Colditz Castle, where he and the other P.o.W.s were liberated by the advancing American armies in April 1945. Come along to Tangmere Museum on the 7th August and learn more…

You can check out the Tangmere Museum Website: http://www.tangmere-museum.org.uk/index.php for more details

Click HERE to download a poster with more information

THE BRITISH 10k LONDON RUN

Sunday 10th July 2011

You’ve still got some time to get fit and join TEAM BADER for the British 10k London Run!

Each year we have had Douglas Bader Foundation supporters running the 10k and raising funds for the charity making it a major fundraising event for us. Please join us and make this our best year ever.

As well as completing a personal challenge, you will be joining a friendly group of supporters to share the experience with and raising funds for a worthy cause at the same time.

2010 - Stalwart DBF Supporter, Jess Delderfield, enjoys her Sunday run! She has competed in all ten of the London runs - an amazing achievement.

2010 - DBF Supporter, Graham Toms, sprints gently under Hungerford Bridge

As you can see, you will be provided with a cutting edge of fashion Tee Shirt so there will be no doubt  who you are running for and we can guarantee some vocal encouragement along the way from the pavement supporters!

Please click HERE to download a Flyer. We’d be grateful if you could display it where it might attract more people to take part and raise funds for the Douglas Bader Foundation. We rely almost entirely on fundraising events and donations for our work and the British 10k London Run is one of our great fundraising opportunities.

To find out more, please contact Keith Delderfield by emailing: douglasbaderfdn@btinternet.com or telephoning: 07831 596015

Alternatively, you can fill in the automatic email form below being sure to put 10k London Run in the Subject Field.

Both will take place at the wonderful Tivoli Lagos Hotel and Monarch Airlines have kindly arranged some group flights to accommodate the competitors.

The Douglas Bader Foundation are extremely grateful to the Tivoli Lagos Hotel and Monarch Airlines for their ongoing support and for offering this exciting opportunity to our golfing supporters.

You will find more information, contact links to John Southwick, the Tournament organiser, and access to downloadable forms on the Bader Golf News Page.

Lady Bader, president of the Douglas Bader Foundation has this to say about the tournaments:

Zoe Gibbs, the Lakeland teenager whose lower left leg was severed in a watercraft collision April 24 on Lake Gibson, faces further amputation because of a persistent infection.

Karen and Chad Crook comfort their daughter, Alyssia, 13, as she recovers from surgery, at Shriner's Children's Hospital in Chicago to remove part of her left leg, from the knee down. Photo by Rex Larsen/The Grand Rapids Press

Showing bravado beyond her age, the little basketball player whose story was embraced by an international audience gazed up at her surgeon before being wheeled in for the three-hour operation and said, “Let’s get this thing going.”

“I feel the same way,” answered Dr. Jeffrey Ackman, chief of staff at Shriner’s Children’s Hospital, where Alyssia has been undergoing painful treatments for years in an attempt to forgo the operation that, in the end, she herself chose to undergo.

More in-depth coverage of Alyssia’s surgery and recovery, as documented by the award-winning team of columnist Tom Rademacher and photographer Rex Larsen, will be shared with readers in Sunday’s Press.

Alyssia’s story first came to light in March, when she embraced readers of The Grand Rapids Press with her desire to play just one basketball game with her classmates at Baldwin Street Middle School before having to lose her leg. In that story, she shared how she’d seen herself in a vision — a young mother with a prosthetic leg, but a young mother able to involve herself with her kids, rather than undergo more therapies and procedures that didn’t offer any guarantees.

“I choose to be a mom that can play with her children,” she said then.

The seventh-grader’s story was picked up by wire services, Internet sources and more, and she was whisked off to New York City to appear on NBC’s “Today” show. In the last several weeks, cards and gifts and prayers have been pouring in to the plucky girl from Allendale. A benefit held in her honor last week netted thousands of dollars to help offset the cost of rehabilitating the home of parents Chad and Karen Crook, who need to make their digs more adaptable to the daughter, who will gradually progress from a wheelchair to a walker to crutches to, finally, a prosthetic leg.

The night before her surgery, Alyssia braced herself for a life-changing event, watching movies at the Ronald McDonald House here and spending intimate moments with mom and dad.

“I’m scared,” she admitted, “but this will help me a lot to be free of pain. I’m going to have to learn how to walk all over again, but I want to be able to know what it’s like to wake up and not be hurting.”

Her doctor seconded that notion, saying after emerging from the operating room that “I think the outcomes here will be very good. The circulation looked very good. Hopefully, this will relieve the pain and suffering she’s been exposed to so much.”

Alyssia’s problems began at birth, when she inherited a rare congenital disorder from her Ukranian mother known as pterygium syndrome, characterized by a buildup of dense scar tissue that can affect the pelvis on down. In Alyssia’s case, that thickening tissue was gradually strangling the arteries and nerves in her leg.

Ackman, who has nearly 25 years’ experience as a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, exhausted all other remedies before advocating for amputation.

Ackman was able to save more muscle and tissue than he’d initially thought, which will enable Alyssia to be fitted with a prosthetic leg that will allow her to play sports again — virtually anything she wants to try. He did, however, discover “fascinating anatomy” in a second and unexpected bundle of nerves, arteries and veins — a duplication of what the normal leg would render.

Chad Crook comforts his daughter, Alyssia, 13, as she recovers from surgery, at Shriner's Children's Hospital in Chicago to remove part of her left leg, from the knee down. Photo by Rex Larsen/The Grand Rapids Press

Ackman predicted that in a month or less, Alyssia’s wound will be healed and fitted with a prosthetic. “My hope is to get her back to playing basketball as soon as she can,” he said. “And I know she has the spirit for that.”

Alyssia’s mood in the 24 hours leading up to the operation surprised even her parents, who adopted her from an orphanage in the Ukraine when she was 5, and have watched her endure more than her fair share of bad breaks. Though naturally apprehensive, “She was prepared, she was ready, and she was emotionally ready to go,” said Chad, who works as a supervisor with Life EMS in Grand Rapids.

“No crying, no complaining, no drama,” added Karen.

Thursday’s operation began around 9 a.m., and Alyssia was back in her room shortly after the noon hour. She cuddled with a stuffed animal named “Darby” and pestered her dad for ice chips more often than she was initially allowed. By midafternoon, she was feeling well enough to make phone calls from her bed. In a call to her brother Aaron, 18, back home, she said “I wanted to say hi, blah, blah, blah … and to let you know I didn’t die.”

Later, she called best friend Andrea — they’re on the same middle school swim team — and said “Well, I just wanted to call you and tell you how I was doing … and your parents don’t have to cry that much.”

Asked if she had anything to say in the aftermath, Alyssia thought for a moment and answered, “God did great. He helps.”

And then, addressing those who have been tracking her progress, she added, “I love you guys.”

All at the Douglas Bader Foundation are delighted to hear about your successful operation, Alyssia, and wish you a full and speedy recovery and ultimately a pain-free existence. You certainly deserve it. Your courage is an inspiration to us all – the Bader spirit in spades!

THIS year marks the 50th anniver- sary of the opening of Sandfield Park School in West Derby. And next Saturday, May 21 – between 11am and 3pm – the school will mark its first half century with a reunion for past and present staff and students and friends of the school.

The school serves the needs of young people with a wide range of physical, medical, emotional and learning difficulties either in the main school setting, in Alder Hey Hospital or through home tuition.

It was opened in 1961 by World War II hero Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader and has hosted many celebrity visitors, ranging from the current King and Queen of Norway to Val Doonican and the late Arthur Askey and Sir John Moores.

And during its 20th anniversary year, students travelled to London to meet Diana, Princess of Wales and Nancy Reagan.

John Hudson, headteacher for the last 15 years, says: “We are really looking forward to the reunion – we’re just hoping the weather will continue to be as good as it has been!

“The Lord Mayor, Councillor Hazel Williams, will open the proceedings.

“The last occasion we had like this was for the 40th anniversary and it was amazing to see the number of people who attended, including a number of former students who had been here when the school opened in 1961.

“And one of the things that has been very interesting as we look back at so many old photographs – including those featuring some staff members who have been here a long time – is seeing how fashions have changed!”

The school is noted for its strong links with the local community – and the late Ronald Austin, son of the late Ethel Austin, endowed the development of a garden in the school grounds. It includes a memorial to former students and has been maintained by the local fire brigade, together with the school’s gardening club.

Pupils are taught in small class groups which enables them to receive the individual attention that they require. Each class group has at least one classroom assistant attached to it.

In September 2003 Alder Hey Hospital School became part of Sandfield Park School and the school also became responsible for home teaching for children unable to return to their own school for medical reasons.

There are about 70 pupils, aged between 11 and 19, on the Sandfield Park site and, including Alder Hey Hospital School and home tuition, a total of about 200 pupils (the pupils receiving tuition in hospital and at home are aged five to 16).

John Hudson adds: “I think it’s the atmosphere created by the students and the staff that makes the school such a great place. They create a very special atmosphere.”

Read More http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-life/liverpool-lifestyle/2011/05/14/sandfield-park-school-marks-its-50th-anniversary-100252-28690342/#ixzz1Mdwk7ugr

• By Cheryl Peebles
• Published in the Courier : 16.05.11
• Published online : 16.05.11 @ 11.29am

Cupar Cricket Club has been providing an outlet for fans of the game since 1836, but this season its committee had no choice but to suspend play as they were short of numbers and lacked suitable facilities for welcoming fellow clubs.

Although it lists its establishment date as 1884, the club was formed in 1836. Since its revival in 1884, its operation has been interrupted only by the two world wars.

Secretary Gordon Anderson confirmed that the club had decided to pull out of play this season.

He said, “We have been struggling for players in recent years, and also the previous winter we had problems with the plumbing in our clubhouse.

“Our clubhouse isn’t really suitable for hosting games.

“We had hoped to give it a go this season, but a couple of players weren’t going to be available for training or matches. Due to the combination of these factors we are taking a break this year.”

Little maintenance has been carried out in the last few years on the clubhouse as the club was hoping to benefit from new facilities in the upgrade of the Douglas Bader Memorial Garden. Plans to turn the garden into a world-class attraction included the creation of new sports facilities the club hoped to use, but they fell through in 2008 when lottery funding was refused.

Two years ago the club teamed up with Fife Curling Trust, which wants to create a £1 million curling rink in Cupar. It is intended the sports facility will have a cricket pavilion.

However, Mr Anderson said he did not expect that to materialise any time soon.

The future of the clubhouse was an ongoing issue, he said.

“We are a small club, we don’t have a great deal of finance, and we need to have a look at various options to see how we go forward.

“Quite a lot of work is needed to the plumbing in the clubhouse, and we haven’t even got to the point of getting a valuation.”

It is hoped the club will be able to take part in a handful of friendly fixtures this season and that it will be back in play next year.

The Plough in Shepreth

Developers want South Cambridgeshire District Council to give permission to turn The Plough in Shepreth, Cambridgeshire, – a village in Conservative Health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s constituency – into a house.

97-year-oold Teddy Handscombe – whose parents, Fred and Ellen Lee, ran The Plough in the 1930s and 1940s – urged planners to remember the pub’s historical significance and force owners to sell it as a going concern.

She said she could still picture Spitfire and Hurricane pilots from nearby RAF Duxford – where some of the Second World War’s greatest fighter aces, including disabled hero Douglas Bader, were based – drinking in the bar in 1940.

“It would be a crime if we lost The Plough given its history. And there’s no reason for it,” said Mrs Handscombe, who still lives near the pub. “I would be terribly upset if it disappeared.”

She added: “I can still see those boys in there. They used to come from Duxford and from the bases at Fowlmere and Bassingbourn, which were also nearby.

“They had Wellington bombers at Bassingbourn. I remember they used to fly low over the pub. The Wellingtons would be so low that the tree across the road would bend.”

More than 400 villagers – including Mrs Handscombe, who moved to Shepreth in the 1930s after her parents left the Duke of York pub in King’s Cross, London – have signed a petition calling for councillors to reject any house plan for The Plough.

The Plough was turned into a restaurant a few years ago and shut in January.

Campaigners trying to stop a house being created say The Plough thrived when run as a traditional pub – and would again – but was the wrong site for a restaurant.

They argue that a village should not lose a pub because one owner made a mistake by creating a restaurant which failed.

The RAF fighter pilots who fought off Hitler’s Luftwaffe despite daunting odds, and stopped Germany invading during the summer of 1940, were immortalised by Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

Churchill said in a speech in August 1940 that the “British airmen” were “turning the tide” and added: “Never in the course of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

As you can see, the Website had been refreshed and largely redesigned and we hope you’ll agree it’s a lot better for it!

We are especially pleased with our brand new BADER BRAVES pages and extremely grateful to the excellent Coreware team, particularly Rob Sumner for his inspired design.

The BADER BRAVES initiative would have delighted Sir Douglas. We’re very excited about the idea and we’d welcome your suggestions and input to help us to maximise its potential.

The DOUGLAS BADER FOUNDATION welcomes your involvement so please contact us with your thoughts and ideas; any stories or information you’d like us to include or just to let us know how we can improve our service. We’re always open to positive suggestions.

Anyway – we’re back!

Please enjoy the new Website and don’t fail to get in touch if you’d like more information about the charity. Contact details can be found on the top menu bar.

The Douglas Bader Foundation and latest Bader Grant recipient, RAFT (The Restoration of Appearance and Function Trust), have joined forces to create an original and exciting Challenge for 2011.

The “Fiery 3″ Challenge trek will take you up Italy’s 3 iconic volcanoes; VESUVIUS, STROMBOLI and ETNA.

This is a demanding trek but, if previous challenges are anything to go by, we can pretty much guarantee that it will also be enjoyable and that you’ll meet some wonderful and inspirational people. There is no doubt that you will see some magnificent views.

The Challenge runs from the 22nd – 27th September, 2011. Plenty of time to get fit!

Are you up for it?

Please click HERE to download a Flyer for the Event. The more people who participate, the more money will be raised for 2 very worthy causes so please distribute the Flyers where you think they might attract potential “Fiery 3″ trekkers.

For more information, please contact Keith Delderfield (click on his name for contact details) or fill in the email form below and we’ll get back to you.

His initial feeling that it was a “wind-up” quickly turned to determination and, after following a rigorous fitness regime, he set off on the 14th October in a group of 15, including 5 fellow amputees (one, amazingly, a double amputee) to attempt the climb.

To reach the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro poses enormous difficulty to an able-bodied climber, but for a – then! – 59 year old who had only been an amputee since 2008, it would present a formidable physical and mental challenge.

Wyn writes beautifully and inspiringly about his experience and we are very grateful to him for allowing us to publish his piece on the Website.

Please click on the link below to read his moving account. We hope that it will inspire you to undertake your own challenges. If you too fancy taking on Mount Kilimanjaro, Wyn is planning another trip in 2013 and you will find more about that in his report. Alternatively, the Douglas Bader Foundation has 2 exciting challenges lined up for next year with details shortly to be announced. Keep checking into the Website or contact Keith Delderfield at douglasbaderfdn@btinternet.com in the New Year for more information.

Douglas Bader famously advised: “Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you can’t do this or that. That’s nonsense. Make up your mind, you’ll never use crutches or a stick, then have a go at everything. Go to school, join in all the games you can. Go anywhere you want to. But never, never let them persuade you that things are too difficult or impossible.”  Wyn’s courage couldn’t represent that advice more clearly.

Click here to download a wonderful, PDF article of the whole event

Here are links to more photos downloaded by group members.

http://gallery.me.com/skinnns#100552

http://gallery.mac.com/skinnns#100563

Many congratulations to the eventual winners, husband and wife team, Denis and Kate Thompson from Bedale Golf Club. Thanks to them and to all the finalists for taking part and for making the Final such an enjoyable and memorable occasion for all concerned.

The Douglas Bader Foundation is, again, extremely grateful to all our sponsors for the event, MONARCH AIRLINES, GOLFE DO MORGADO and the TIVOLI HOTEL LAGOS. Without their extraordinary and ongoing generosity, the event and the invaluable funds  it raises for The Douglas Bader Foundation simply wouldn’t be possible.

We are also indebted to John Southwick, the organiser of this great tournament, and his partner, Pat, for his phenomenal efforts in creating and running such a successful and enjoyable competition for yet another year. Without John there would be no tournament and we are enormously grateful for the generous contribution the Bader Cup raises annually to help the Douglas Bader Foundation to continue its valuable work on behalf of amputees and other disabled.

Very grateful thanks to you all.

Please click HERE to see the results, as well as a report by John Southwick, the Tournament organiser, on the dedicated Bader Cup 2010 page.

THE BADER CUP 2010 – GRAND FINAL

AN ARTICLE by SUE SPENCER

All British Clubs should enter Bader Cup

The Bader Cup is such a great golf competition that it deserves to be better known.  What other charity golf competition gives you the chance to play in an all-expenses-paid final in the Algarve sunshine on a fine course like Alamos at Morgado do Reguengo near Portimao?

Winning pairs from the twelve UK regional finals, as well as last year’s winners Craig and Carol Lewis from Palleg, competed in a Greensomes Stableford on Alamos on November 10.  Perfect conditions helped winners Denis and Kate Thompson from Bedale Golf Club score 45 points.  ‘We were amazed to win our regional final, let alone the actual Cup!’ said Kate.

Denis and Kate Thompson, from Bedale Golf Club, won the 2010 Bader Cup

This is the 23^rd year of the Bader Cup, which to date has raised £300,000 for the Douglas Bader Foundation, helping people with missing limbs and other disabilities.

It only costs £8 per couple to enter and the more UK clubs that take part, the more money is raised.

See www.golfworldwideholidays.com for an entry form for the 2011 competition

“Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you can’t do this or that. That’s nonsense. Make up your mind, you’ll never use crutches or a stick, then have a go at everything. Go to school, join in all the games you can. Go anywhere you want to. But never, never let them persuade you that things are too difficult or impossible.”

“I have to call it an accident.”

The GERRARDS CROSS Cinema is celebrating its 85th Birthday!

To celebrate this achievement – unusual in cinema history with so many cinemas closing or changing their use, it will be showing “Reach for the Sky”.

If you are or could be in the Gerrards Cross area on Tuesday 12th October, you could combine an enjoyable afternoon at the Gerrards Cross Odeon watching “Reach for the Sky” while raising funds for The Douglas Bader Foundation.

So – please go along and support not just this grand old lady of the cinema world but also the nominated charities. The Douglas Bader Foundation relies almost exclusively on donations to continue its valuable work on behalf of amputees and other disabled and we are very grateful for all support.

Our thanks in advance to the Odeon, Gerrards Cross for this kind thought and to all of you who attend the showing. We hope you enjoy this classic film.

Please read on for the Press Release:

85 years old and going strong!

The Odeon cinema in Gerrards Cross is getting younger by the day

The cinema, celebrating its 85^th birthday in October, is a 2 screen traditional cinema nestled in the village of Gerrards Cross. Its popularity has meant it has changed ownership nine times in its 85 years. In the heydays of theatre and cinema in the 1920s, when the cinema was built, nearly every town had its own theatre. Very few of its colleagues are still standing, let alone been in continuous use since opening. Gerrards Cross cinema is one of these special few sites that has consistently entertained and captured the imagination of its community.

Originally a single screen cinema, ‘Classic Cinemas LTD’ adapted the site to contain two screens in the 1970’s. It has been used as a filming location site for many projects; in 1968/69 the film “Carry on Camping” used it in its opening scenes, ironically this was the last film to be shown in the cinema as a ‘Picture Playhouse’. Another major change to the structure of the site came in 2000 when the ODEON chain re-branded and refurbished both screens. This year ODEON Gerrards Cross will have its second Digital projector installed in October, providing the very latest in Cinema technology.

Elaine Pullen, General Manager of the ODEON said “it’s fantastic news that we will soon be able to offer the latest generation of technology at Gerrards Cross. 3D titles we are looking forward to exhibiting in October 2010 include, ‘Despicable Me’ and ‘The Legend of the Guardians’, In November we are looking forward to presenting Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Part 1.”

“I know that the local community will embrace the continued development of ODEON Gerrards Cross and show the same loyal support that they have for the past 85 years. The ODEON Team are looking forward to a new era in the cinema’s history and look forward to celebrating its success at our birthday celebrations. We intend on showing the film ‘Reach for the Sky’, starring Gerrards Cross born actor Kenneth More as the heroic fighter pilot Douglas Bader. All the proceeds from the performance will be donated to charity, with proceeds being donated to The Bader Foundation, The Variety Club and NSPCC.”

The Douglas Bader Foundation exists to advance and promote the physical, mental and spiritual welfare of persons who are without one or more limbs, or otherwise physically disabled. Support is essential as the charity relies entirely on donations to continue its invaluable work.

‘Reach for the Sky’ will be showing at the ODEON Gerrards Cross on Tuesday 12^th October 2010 at 15:00. Tickets are at the SuperSaver box office prices, concession discount is always available.

CONTACT DETAILS

Ms Rapinder Khabda – Senior Cinema Manager, Odeon Gerrards Cross

Tel: 01895 272826

Email: odeon.uxbridge@odeonuk.com ]]> http://douglasbaderfoundation.com/2010/10/01/cinema-chooses-bader-story-to-mark-its-milestone-birthday/feed/ 0 http://douglasbaderfoundation.com/2010/09/24/battle-of-britain-hero-pilot-baders-story/ http://douglasbaderfoundation.com/2010/09/24/battle-of-britain-hero-pilot-baders-story/#comments Fri, 24 Sep 2010 12:04:59 +0000 wendy http://douglasbaderfoundation.co.uk/?p=3379

by Jenny Minard BBC Berkshire Reporter Of all the Battle of Britain pilots, the name that is still the most famous is Sir Douglas Bader. He destroyed 22 enemy aircraft and was a larger than life character – which alone made him a well-known name. But that he overcame losing his legs in a flying accident in 1931 to achieve all that he did has made him a flying legend. His accident happened at Woodley aerodrome – you may well have driven past the spot just off Bader Way. But his Berkshire connections go deeper than that. After the war he settled at a farm house in West Berkshire with his now widow, Joan, and step-daughter Wendy. Lady Bader told BBC Berkshire how one evening she found herself hosting the German pilot Adolf Galland, who was responsible for destroying more than 100 Allied planes. “They were sitting opposite me at the dinner and they were rattling away and I started to laugh and said; “Look at you, you’ve spent that last five years trying to kill each other and now you’re biggest of buddies. “He said; ‘That’s where you’re wrong, I was trying to kill the enemy.” Moving on Bader’s step-daughter Wendy McCleave also spoke about him and how she had tried to coax him to talk. “One thing we all remember is when he used to invite his friends for dinner, and they would all sit around the dining table pretending to shoot each other down with bread rolls and things like that. “But talking about it, one to one, he wasn’t so keen on. I think he just wanted to move on and do what he could to help people in the same situation as him after that. “I do remember him saying that because people who hadn’t been through it couldn’t begin to understand what it would have been like, that it was very hard to try to talk about it. “Not so much that it diminished the experience but because there was an inability for people who hadn’t faced death every day of their life to have an inkling of what that would have been like.” Bader suffered a double amputation in 1931 following a crash when he was flying as part of the aerobatics team at Hendon. In response he increasingly turned his attention to charitable activities on behalf of the disabled. Overcoming adversity Bader, who was born in February 1910, walked with a pair of artificial legs within six months of the crash. The RAF decided that Bader could not resume his career as a pilot. But he was promised that he could return to flying duties once war had been declared and, after completing a refresher course at Cranwell, he reported for duty at RAF Duxford in February 1940. Seven days later he took to the skies in a Spitfire for the first time, a machine he later described as ‘the aeroplane of one’s dreams’. Following promotion in 1940 he took part in the patrol in support of the evacuation from Dunkirk. Bader and his commanding officer, Trafford Leigh-Mallory conceived the plan to deploy five squadrons in a wing formation to attack the German bombers and accompany fighter planes. The Big Wing strategy was put into place in what was to become the Battle of Britain. Two days later, Hitler switched to a plan of night time raids and effectively abandoned any plans to launch an invasion that year. The Battle of Britain had been won. Bader was promoted to Wing Commander in March 1941 – becoming one of the force’s first Wing Leaders. By August 1941, Bader could claim that he had shot down twenty-three enemy aircraft, making him the fifth most deadly fighter pilot in the RAF. German capture However, on 9 August, Bader collided with a German aeroplane over Bethune and bailed out – leaving one of his prosthetic legs in the cockpit. He was captured by the Germans and after spending a brief spell in hospital, was taken to a prisoner of war camp at Sagan. Bader’s reputation preceded him, and he initially won respect from his captors and they arranged for a replacement leg to be parachuted over. Yet Bader’s persistent non co-operation with the Germans and numerous attempts to escape saw him sent to the prison camp at Colditz. There Bader remained until liberation by American troops in 1945. Historical importance Historian Jon Cooksey explained why Wednesday, 15 September is such an important date in the Battle of Britain. “On this day 70 years ago, it was the turning point. Germany for the first time hadn’t rampaged around Europe and crucially we were able to supply Russia when they were teetering on the edge of destruction for the first 18 months of the German offensive. “Then of course it became a staging post for the American build up, American supplies and staging post for the re-invasion of Europe in 1944. “It’s important for Britain as a bastion, but also crucially as a saviour of Europe and probably directed the outcome of the war.” Bader was awarded numerous honours for his wartime service, including the Distinguished Service Order and bar, the Distinguished Flying Cross and bar, and the Légion d’honneur. He was awarded the CBE in 1956. He married Joan, Lady Bader, in 1974, inheriting three step children. He was knighted for his services to amputees in 1976.

Please click HERE to go to the original BBC Berkshire page where you will be able to hear Lady Bader talking about Sir Douglas

Tony Pickering at RAF Cosford

But thankfully he survived and lived to tell the tale. The 90-year-old war veteran was the special guest at RAF Cosford Museum’s 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain event at the weekend.

Mr Pickering, from Rugby, Warwickshire, was just 19 when the Luftwaffe launched an air raid on British shores in 1940.

He took to the skies in a Hurricane and when he was hit by German fire he was forced to bail out and parachute to safety, moments before his plane crashed in flames.

His question-and-answer session was just one of the many highlights that took place on Saturday and yesterday at the county museum to commemorate the Battle of Britain anniversary.

RAF Cosford spokeswoman, Nina Mitchell, said: “Tony was only there on the Saturday and he proved very popular. People were desperate to hear his stories and hear what he had been through.”

Events

The two-day event was hailed a success by organisers with visitors, young and old, enjoying a host of events at the museum designed to show how British people united against a deadly foe.

And for many of the visitors attending the Shropshire airbase, it was like taking a step back to wartime Britain.

Mrs Mitchell said: “This year’s event commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain was an outstanding success attracting about 4,500 people to the museum.

“We had plenty of attractions on site during the weekend and this was a very special weekend for the museum.”

Visitors were invited to enjoy an art exhibition themed around the battle, a series of flying displays of World War Two aircraft, plus a special exhibition dedicated to the famous Battle of Britain pilot and double leg amputee Douglas Bader.

Activities included engine demonstrations, a performance from the RAF band and the chance to see how a World War Two emergency operations room looked.

Visitors could also meet Winston Churchill courtesy of a re-enactment as well as enjoy a display of aircraft models and military vehicles.

By Alex James

]]> http://douglasbaderfoundation.com/2010/09/13/squadron-leader-tells-of-being-shot-down-by-luftwaffe/feed/ 0 http://douglasbaderfoundation.com/2010/09/13/prime-ministers-father-was-inspired-by-sir-douglas-bader/ http://douglasbaderfoundation.com/2010/09/13/prime-ministers-father-was-inspired-by-sir-douglas-bader/#comments Mon, 13 Sep 2010 21:16:46 +0000 wendy http://douglasbaderfoundation.co.uk/?p=3335 Prime Minister David Cameron has met heroes of the Battle of Britain in central London at the start of a week of commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the RAF’s historic struggle with Germany’s Luftwaffe.

He met four of the people wartime PM Sir Winston Churchill called “the few”: Spitfire pilots Geoffrey Wellum, 89, from Cornwall, and William Walker, 97, from west London; Hurricane pilot Bob Foster, 90, from St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex; and Blenheim gunner Owen Burns, 94, from west London.

The event was Mr Cameron’s first public engagement since the death of his father Ian last week.

He told the veterans and their wives how his father, who was born with stunted legs, had always been proud of meeting flying ace Douglas Bader, who lost his legs in an air accident and encouraged him to make the most of his life despite his disability.

Mr Cameron welcomed a full-size replica of a Spitfire fighter plane of the kind which took part in the Battle, which will be positioned outside the Ministry of Defence building on Whitehall throughout the week.

They also met current Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton and Defence Secretary Liam Fox.

Flight Lieutenant Walker recalled how he flew Spitfires as a pilot officer in the RAF from May until August 1940, when he was shot by a Luftwaffe Messerschmitt 109 and had to bail out into the Channel, where he was rescued by a fishing boat.

“It is a very proud day,” said Flt Lt Walker. “It is nice that people remember us. It’s very satisfying.

“People must always remember what happened. You and I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for those men.”

About 2,900 RAF aircrew took part in the Battle of Britain, which raged in the skies of the south of England from July 10 and October 31 1940, and almost 550 were killed. The Battle marked a decisive turning point in the war, halting Adolf Hitler’s plans for an invasion of Britain.

The images on the screen presented a frightening prospect to the startled radar operators manning their station high on the Dover cliffs.

Multiple tracks revealed waves of enemy aircraft inbound from the French coast. Since the evacuation at Dunkirk in the spring, Britain held out as the beacon of freedom to an imprisoned European continent. It was an act of defiance that would no longer go unanswered by the German High Command.

The operators relayed the data to the Fighter Command operations room, where members of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, or WAAFs, plotted those tracks. The map showed a massive wall of fighters and bombers – some 2,100 planes -representing the Luftwaffe’s greatest assault to date on the besieged island. Hurricane and Spitfire were scrambled to intercept.

Climbing above the English countryside in his Hurricane fighter, Squadron Leader Ernest Archibald McNab scanned the sky in front of him from right to left. The 34-year-old engineering undergraduate from the University of Saskatchewan was already a veteran of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Before the war, he flew Gauntlet and Gladiator biplane fighters with the British No. 46 Squadron and then became trained on the newly acquired Hawker Hurricane. When Canada dispatched pilots to aid its Commonwealth cousins, he was the natural choice to command the RCAF’s first fighter squadron.

Despite this resumé, McNab still had no combat experience. That would all change on the afternoon of Aug. 15, 1940 when he and fellow Canadian Gordon McGregor augmented the RAF’s 111th Squadron. Over the Thames estuary, they engaged a formation heading for London. McNab tangled with a Dornier bomber and shot it down, notching the RCAF’s first aerial victory. For McNab, that day brought him to the sober realization that his untested pilots were not ready for combat.

With the consolidation of Nazi occupation over most of Europe, an amphibious and airborne invasion of Britain was anticipated from the moment the allies escaped France. Hitler issued directives that “Operation: Sealion” be readied for mid-September when the moon was full and the tides high. As naval ships and landing craft were assembled in major ports across northern Europe, Reich Marshal Hermann Goring, commander- in-chief of the Luftwaffe, guaranteed the Furher he would wipe the RAF from the skies and drive the Royal Navy from the English Channel. Both conditions would be necessary if German landings were to be successful.

German military leaders had every right to believe England was ripe for the pickings. The British Expeditionary Force lost or left so much equipment at Dunkirk that for a while there was only one operational infantry division on the island – the 1st Canadian Division under the command of General Andrew McNaughton. To trick German spies, the division found itself marching across southern England to give the illusion that the British had troops on the move. There was a strong belief in the German government that Britain would sue for peace, just as France had.

Meanwhile, the Home Guard was activated as volunteers armed themselves with shotguns and pikes to guard vulnerable points against sabotage. Barbed wire was laid out in front of tank ditches which lined the coast. The stubborn British people began rationing as they prepared themselves for resistence. Their backs and spirits were stiffened by the words of their new prime minister, Winston Churchill:

“Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say: ‘This was their finest hour’.”

Despite Winnie’s confidence, the odds were stacked against them. German air power was at its zenith with 2,830 combat aircraft including 1,300 Messerschmitt 109s fighters and 1,350 bombers, including Heinkel 111s, Junkers 88s and Dornier 17s. The RAF’s Fighter Command had between 600 and 700 fighters comprised of Hurricanes, Spitfires, Blenheims and Defiants.

Although Churchill’s Canadian-born minister of aircraft production, Lord Beaverbrook, worked feverishly to increase the RAF’s squadron strength to 59, they were short on their most vital commod- ity -fighter pilots. Augmenting the British ranks were pilots from occupied Europe, such as Czechs and Poles, and members of the Commonwealth, including more than 80 Canadians.

The uniquely dubbed 242 “Canadian” Squadron had escaped Europe with little more than the shirts on their backs. Their new commanding officer, the legendary Douglas Bader, was told the Canadians were a wild bunch to lead. Introduced to his men, Bader found the pilots to be “a scruffy lot” who wore turtle necks instead of tunics and ties.

The campaign to save Britain would need Bader, a remarkable tactician who lost both his legs in a crash in 1931. Undaunted, he learned to fly again with two artificial legs and then successfully proved to RAF brass he belonged back in the air.

The battle for air supremacy over Britain began on July 10 with the Luftwaffe striking at merchant shipping in the Channel and strafing ports along the coast. On the second day, Canada suffered its first loss when D.A. Hewitt, from Saint John, New Brunswick, dis- abled a Dornier over Portland. His Hurricane was then hit and plunged into the sea.

The second phase, Alder Tag or “Eagle Day” began on Aug. 13 when German fighter-bombers raided coastal airfields and bombed four radar stations. How- ever, their failure to destroy infras- tructure meant the radar could be back up in six hours. Frustrated, Goring turned his attention to air- craft factories and on Aug. 23 ordered an attack on all airfields. That night London was bombed for the first time. In the next two weeks, Croydon, Debden, and North Weald were among the many airfields hit in 33 major aerial bombardments.

Canadians fall in battle. In a tangle where Squadron No. 1 took down three Dorniers and damaged four others, Flight Officer R.L. Edwards lost his life after shooting the tail assembly of a Dornier. He was buried in Surrey, a place he told friends was the prettiest place he’d seen since being in England.

Losses like this troubled Ernest McNab, who feared greatly his men were ill-prepared for combat. Those doubts were rapidly dis- missed on Aug. 19 in the squadron’s second sortie when the RCAF No. 1 destroyed three enemy fighters and damaged three more.

Nevertheless, a pilot’s greatest fear remained being trapped in a burning aircraft as it plunged to the earth. In one day, No. 1 Squadron narrowly lost three pilots this way. Attacked out of the sun by Messerschmitts over Dover, the squadron barely had time to train their guns on the marauders.

As the battle progressed the Canadians were proving to their British commanders how invalu- able they were in this crusade. For example, in one day William “Willie” McKnight, of Edmonton, scored one of the first hat tricks for the RCAF when he shot down two Messerschmitts and a Heinkel. Flying with Bader’s 242 Squadron, McKnight showed exceptional skill and courage, earning him the Distinguished Flying Cross. One of Canada’s greatest fighter pilots, Willie McK- night did not return from a combat mission in January, 1941.

Next week: Marking the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, Douglas Bader and the Canadians live their most critical hour as the fate of Britain and the war is decided during one decisive day -Sept. 15, 1940.

Sean Chase is a Daily Observer reporter.

Please click on the link to see Sir Douglas Bader, who experienced many, talking about the Dogfight and its place in “modern” warfare.

http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist/BHC_ITN/1966/04/27/X27046603/?setlng=true&save=Save&v=0&a=1

The charity’s founder, former school teacher and flying instructor Paul Asbridge, is working with the Douglas Bader Foundation and Aerobility to make his dream come true.

“We will work with people of all disabilities,” said Paul, who thinks learning to fly is an experience which should be shared by more people.

“We also aim to build links with ex-military personnel injured in conflicts,” he added.

But the prime focus of Eagles’ Wings will be giving disadvantaged youths aged between 18 and 25 the chance to get flying.

“The idea for the charity has been in my mind for a long time,” he said. “I’ve been flying for over 30 years, and when I got my commercial licence I wanted to do more than just fly for airlines.

“There is nothing like the feeling of freedom you have in the air. I want to bring that experience to as many challenged yet inspirational young people as possible.

“So I’m interested in young people from difficult socio-economic backgrounds who haven’t had opportunities others have had.

“We want to build confidence and self-belief, and for them to learn some new skills.”

Paul plans to offer a series of short courses working towards the private pilot’s licence. But it won’t all be about the flying.

“They’ll be involved in helping to run the trust; skills which we think will make them more employable,” explained Paul.

FUNDRAISING

“After they’ve completed one of the short modules, they’ll have to fundraise to help pay for the rest of the course. So they’ll have more training in the community.”

Paul’s aim is to give such opportunities to two new students a month, though any young person between 14 and 21 can ask for a heavily subsidised one-off flying lesson.

“The focus is about building confidence and changing mind sets and attitudes,” he said. “I want to help people who’ve been written off, to say, ‘you can do something special, and we’ll help you’.”

The family open day is one of a number of awareness and fundraising days planned by the trust over the next 18 months.

]]> http://douglasbaderfoundation.com/2010/09/06/flying-start-for-new-charity-at-caernarfon-airport/feed/ 1 http://douglasbaderfoundation.com/2010/09/02/the-bader-cup-last-regional-final-results-victory-for-mother-and-son-home-team/ http://douglasbaderfoundation.com/2010/09/02/the-bader-cup-last-regional-final-results-victory-for-mother-and-son-home-team/#comments Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:27:01 +0000 wendy http://douglasbaderfoundation.co.uk/?p=3293 THE BADER CUP is now recognised to be Europe’s largest National Mixed Golf Tournament and, thanks to the hard work, dedication and support of those involved, annually raises a considerable amount of money for the Douglas Bader Foundation. For more information, please visit The Bader Cup Website. You will find a link at the bottom [...]]]>

Menus signed by some of the Battle of Britain’s bravest pilots, including men who served with distinction on Norfolk RAF bases, have turned up unexpectedly on the eve of the conflict’s 70th anniversary.

The wife and five daughters of the late Air Vice Marshal Freddie Hurrell, including two who live in Norfolk, were thrilled earlier this month when four menus signed at an honours banquet 20 years ago came to light among his unsorted papers.

Now his widow Jay has donated three of them to the RAF Benevolent Fund, hoping the timely find will boost the charity’s coffers while the war-changing aerial battle is the focus of national attention.

And the fund says it may include them in an auction at a gala dinner in London’s Guildhall on Battle of Britain Day, September 15.

The 1990 banquet, held in the Battle of Britain Hall at the RAF Museum in Hendon, marked the publication of ‘…. so few’, a £2,000 book produced for the fund to mark the Battle of Britain’s 50th anniversary.

It was attended by most of the highly-decorated 25 pilots featured in the book, including Air Marshal Sir Denis Crowley-Milling, Sqn Ldr Boleslaw Drobinski, Air Vice Marshal Harold Bird-Wilson and Air Cdre Pete Brothers, all of whom have since died.

Crowley-Milling flew Hurricanes with 242 Squadron at RAF Coltishall as ‘No 2′ to squadron leader Douglas Bader, whose charisma and enthusiasm had a lifelong influence on him. The pair remained close friends until Bader’s death.

He recalls in ‘…so few’: “I felt bloody frightened as Douglas dived us in fairly close formation slap into the middle of masses of bombers, with fighters above. The little man inside you kept telling you that this was a dangerous game, but he was drowned by Douglas’s constant encouragement over the R/T.”

Polish-born Drobinski took command of the 303 Squadron at RAF Coltishall in September 1944 when the base was briefly given over to Polish squadrons.

In the post-war era, Bird-Wilson was tasked with establishing the first base for RAF supersonic fighters at Coltishall as its commanding officer in 1959, and Brothers took charge at RAF Marham in 1957 where he commanded the first ‘V-bomber’ wing in the RAF, equipped with Valiants.

Also featured in the book, but not at the banquet, was Czech Sqn Ldr Miloslav Mansfeld, who flew Beaufighters from RAF Coltishall in 1942. On one night in early spring he shot down three enemy aircraft off Happisburgh.

Mrs Hurrell, who attended the 50th anniversary banquet with her husband, remembered: “It was marvellous and thrilling to be with all those brave men. Our tables were placed under the wings of aircraft in the museum.”

Her husband, a former director general of the RAF’s medical branch, had been one of six men who produced the limited edition ‘…so few’ with the first copy presented to the Queen.

AVM Hurrell’s daughters Katy Marczewski and Alex Hurrell live in Yaxham, near Dereham, and North Walsham, respectively.

‘…so few’ owes its name to a line from Winston Churchill’s famous speech in 1940, praising the efforts of the RAF pilots who were fighting the Battle of Britain at the time. His words were: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

THE BADER CUP is now recognised to be Europe’s largest National Mixed Golf Tournament and, thanks to the hard work, dedication and support of those involved, annually raises a considerable amount of money for the Douglas Bader Foundation. For more information, please visit The Bader Cup Website. You will find a link at the bottom of this page and on the Results Page.

The latest Regional Finals results are now in from Ely City Golf Club – Cambridgeshire, and Aldwickbury Park Golf Club played on the 24th August and the 25th August respectively.

Congratulations to Michelle Hawkins and Danny Adkins from Stock Brook Manor who won at Ely City Golf Club, Cambridgeshire, with 39 points (21 back nine) and Robin and Richard Chapman from Muswell Hill who won at Aldwickbury Park Golf Club (1st Tee) with 39 points. Special congratulations to the Chapmans who, not content simply to win, scored a hole-in-one on their way to victory. A great achievement. These 2 winning pairs will now go on to join Sandi and Chris Stott (Parkstone);  Lynne and Keith Sutton (Forest Pines); Janet and David James (Ashford – Kent); Karen Ashcroft and John Jordan (Slinfold Park Golf and Country Club); Sue and Clive Richardson (Lewes); Pamela and Howard Chamberlain (Pleasington); Karen Over and Kevin Nicholson (The Park) and Barbara King and Jack Marris (Whetstone) in the Algarve  to play for the prestigious BADER CUP in the Grand Final between November 7th – 11th.

Our thanks, as always, to the participating Golf Clubs for their support in staging the Regional Finals, to John Southwick for organising the Tournament and to our sponsors, The Tivoli Lagos Hotel, Monarch Airlines and Morgado do Reguengo for making it possible.

We hope that all who played but didn’t win this time enjoyed the competitions and will be back to try again next year.

For more information and for a link to the full results, please click HERE to go to the Results Page on the Douglas Bader Foundation Website. We will add results as they come in so do keep checking the page for updates.

N.B. THE BADER CUP 2011: All this years regional finalists are handed an advanced entry form to complete and return to gain entry for THE BADER CUP 2011. And it is now possible to make the entry through The Bader Cup Website:  www.thebadercup.co.uk ]]> http://douglasbaderfoundation.com/2010/08/26/the-bader-cup-latest-results-in-from-ely-city-and-aldwickbury-park-golf-clubs/feed/ 0 http://douglasbaderfoundation.com/2010/08/24/cycle-london-to-paris-2011/ http://douglasbaderfoundation.com/2010/08/24/cycle-london-to-paris-2011/#comments Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:34:39 +0000 wendy http://douglasbaderfoundation.co.uk/?p=3230 THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY! Would you like to join the Douglas Bader Foundation, Limbless Association and Limb Power on this great adventure? We need 30 people to ride alongside a team of amputees, healthcare professionals and friends. As well as getting fit and having a thoroughly enjoyable and challenging ride (with a great location at the [...]]]> THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY!

Would you like to join the Douglas Bader Foundation, Limbless Association and Limb Power on this great adventure?

We need 30 people to ride alongside a team of amputees, healthcare professionals and friends.

As well as getting fit and having a thoroughly enjoyable and challenging ride (with a great location at the end of it), you’ll be raising funds for 3 very worthwhile charities and thereby helping other amputees.

It’s early days at the moment and we’ll be posting more information as it comes in but we think this is going to be a very popular event and are giving you the opportunity to register your interest early!

We had the most wonderful day and were thoroughly spoilt by the hospitality team under Annie Wills. We couldn’t have been better looked after from the moment we arrived until we dragged ourselves away that evening. The food and company were wonderful and the aircraft, including a full display by the fantastic Red Arrows, awesome. To my surprise, I found that I was moved by the aircraft displays; to see evidence of man’s ingenuity and technical genius in those extraordinarily powerful and frequently very beautiful machines was quite salutary and the noise and power of some of those beasts sends shivers down your spine. What Douglas would have given to be able to fly one of those! That said, he would certainly have recognised a couple of his old friends as we were treated to a Demonstration Dog Fight featuring the last Spitfire still flying to have flown in the Battle of Britain.

We were very grateful to Carolyn, the fantastic Mayor of Eastbourne, for her time and company. Eastbourne is certainly lucky to have her; there can’t be many Mayors who are wing-walking one day and hurtling down dummy parachute drops the next. She’d have been up there flying with the Red Arrows on Saturday given half a chance! We thoroughly enjoyed our time with her and her husband and our other fellow guests.

An unexpected bonus to the day was the discovery of notebooks written by Douglas’s last secretary from 1979 to the time of his death in September 1982. These were handed to my mother by Jenny Horridge, one of the hospitality team, who had found them apparently carefully hidden behind a cupboard in a flat she had just bought in Eastbourne. Mostly written in Shorthand, the notebooks contain Douglas’s last years and chronicle that fascinating period in history of which he was so much a part. Most of the writing is, sadly, indecipherable to anyone who doesn’t read Pittman, but several important names from history are clearly visible in longhand and hand written notes bear evidence to the fact that “all life is there”. There are personal references such as shopping lists, budget plans and memos but also letters relating to his business life and, almost more importantly, to the visits he was continually making to amputees and disabled people. It was, of course, as a direct result of these visits and the letters we received from amputees and other disabled people he’s inspired, that we founded the Douglas Bader Foundation in his name following his death. What the notebooks bring home, packed as they are with letters, lists, addresses and schedules etc. is how busy Douglas was even at that stage of his life when, even though he’d kept it close to his chest in characteristic fashion, he knew that he wasn’t well and may not have much longer to live.

The next stage, of course, is to get the notebooks carefully transcribed and to see what they contain. If, as is likely, there is enough of interest there, we may well be able to publish them as a fascinating tribute to the last years of a great man and the time that he lived in. We would also love to know what happened to his secretary after she apparently retired to Eastbourne, and to hear her story.

Whatever the notebooks prove to contain, we are extremely grateful to Jenny for their return. As they run up to and beyond the time of his death and contain references to his funeral arrangements and guest list etc., they have a great deal of sentimental value to the family and we will be very interested to see what they contain.

There has been quite considerable publicity surrounding their discovery but, for those of you who are interested and may have missed it, here are some links to some of the stories. We hope you enjoy them.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-10997816

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/News/Article.aspx?articleID=14293

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-10998392

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8920000/8920031.stm

http://www.manchesterwired.co.uk/news.php/82370-Sir-Douglas-Bader-notebooks-found-in-Eastbourne-flat

THE BADER CUP Regional Final was played at Stover Golf Club, Newton Abbot, on the 19th August and we now have these latest results.

Congratulations to Sandi and Chris Stott from Parkstone who won with 43 points and will join Lynne and Keith Sutton (Forest Pines); Janet and David James (Ashford – Kent); Karen Ashcroft and John Jordan (Slinfold Park Golf and Country Club); Sue and Clive Richardson (Lewes); Pamela and Howard Chamberlain (Pleasington); Karen Over and Kevin Nicholson (The Park) and Barbara King and Jack Marris (Whetstone) in the Algarve  to play for the prestigious Bader Cup in the Grand Final between November 7th – 11th.

Our thanks, as always, to the participating Golf Clubs for their support in staging the Regional Finals, to John Southwick for organising the Tournament and to our sponsors, The Tivoli Lagos Hotel, Monarch Airlines and Morgado do Reguengo for making it possible.

We hope that all who played but didn’t win this time enjoyed the competitions and will be back to try again next year.

For more information and for a link to the full results, please click HERE to go to the Results Page on the Douglas Bader Foundation Website. We will add results as they come in so do keep checking the page for updates.

N.B. THE BADER CUP 2011: All this years regional finalists are handed an advanced entry form to complete and return to gain entry for THE BADER CUP 2011. And it is now possible to make the entry through The Bader Cup Website:  www.thebadercup.co.uk

We now have the latest 2010 Bader Cup Regional Final results in from Market Rasen & District Golf Club, Lincolnshire, which was played on the 16th August.

Congratulations to Lynne and Keith Sutton from Forest Pines who won with 41 points and will join Janet and David James (Ashford – Kent); Karen Ashcroft and John Jordan (Slinfold Park Golf and Country Club); Sue and Clive Richardson (Lewes); Pamela and Howard Chamberlain (Pleasington); Karen Over and Kevin Nicholson (The Park) and Barbara King and Jack Marris (Whetstone) in the Algarve  to play for the prestigious Bader Cup in the Grand Final between November 7th – 11th.

Our thanks, as always, to the participating Golf Clubs for their support in staging the Regional Finals, to John Southwick for organising the Tournament and to our sponsors, The Tivoli Lagos Hotel, Monarch Airlines and Morgado do Reguengo for making it possible.

We hope that all who played but didn’t win this time enjoyed the competitions and will be back to try again next year.

For more information and for a link to the full results, please click HERE to go to the Results Page. We will add results as they come in so do keep checking this page for updates.

N.B. THE BADER CUP 2011: All this years regional finalists are handed an advanced entry form to complete and return to gain entry for the 2011 BADER CUP. And it is now possible to make the entry through The Bader Cup Website:  www.thebadercup.co.uk

The third week of the Bader Cup Regional Finals has been played and two more results are in from North Downs and Piltdown Golf Clubs played on the 10th and 11th August respectively.

Traditionally the Bader Cup gives two places to the Finals from the biggest field, particularly if there is a card play-off and, as this year that was Piltdown Golf Club, Sussex, 2 couples from that Regional Final will be going to the Algarve in November.

So – congratulations to Janet and David James (Ashford – Kent) who won at North Downs Golf Club, Surrey, with 43 points despite a rain-delayed start and some pretty atrocious playing conditions, and from Piltdown Golf Club, Sussex, the Piltdown 4; Karen Ashcroft and John Jordan (Slinfold Park Golf and Country Club) with 42 (21 back nine) points, and Sue and Clive Richardson (Lewes) with 42 (20 back nine) points. They will all join Pamela and Howard Chamberlain (Pleasington); Karen Over and Kevin Nicholson (The Park) and Barbara King and Jack Marris (Whetstone) in the Algarve  to play for the prestigious Bader Cup in the Grand Final between November 7th – 11th.

Our thanks, as always, to the Participating Golf Clubs for their support in staging the Regional Finals, to John Southwick for organising the Tournament and to our sponsors, The Tivoli Lagos Hotel, Monarch Airlines and Morgado do Reguengo for making it possible.

We hope that all who played but didn’t win this time enjoyed the competitions and will be back to try again next year.

For more information and for a link to the full results, please click HERE to go to the Results Page. We will add results as they come in so do keep checking this page for updates.

N.B.: THE BADER CUP 2011: All this years regional finalists are handed an advanced entry form to complete and return to gain entry for the 2011 BADER CUP. And it is now possible to make the entry through The Bader Cup Website: www.thebadercup.co.uk

BADER BRAVES is an initiative of the DOUGLAS BADER FOUNDATION (Charity Commission Registration Number:800435)

The BADER BRAVES Young Aviators’ Day at the West London Aero Club, White Waltham, took place on Sunday 18th July and, as at the same venue last year, was a wonderful event thoroughly enjoyed by all who attended.

“Just wanted to say thanks very much.  The kids loved their flights.” (Heather Moors)

The West London Aero Club again did everyone proud. They  worked extraordinarily hard both up front and behind the scenes to ensure that the day ran smoothly and again provided the laid back and enjoyable atmosphere that seems so special to this lovely airfield. There are so many people to thank; firstly, a big one, to Deny Batchelor, Operations Manager, who was responsible for pulling the whole thing together and remained wonderfully cheerful while she did(!); the airfield ground crew and staff who worked so hard (in at least one case putting in one, if not two, 18 hour days); the tireless helpers; the caterers who produced an excellent picnic lunch and perhaps the most heartfelt thank you of all, particularly where the children are concerned, as in all our Young Aviators Days, to the wonderful pilots without whom, of course, these events couldn’t take place at all. As well as the use of their precious aeroplanes they so generously offer their time, their fuel and their skills time and again to give the children and, where possible, siblings and other willing members of their families, an experience they will never forget – what is ofter their first experience of flight in a light aircraft. Their patience seems to know no bounds and their willingness and desire to make the experience as good as it can possibly be for the children is what makes these events the success they undoubtedly are. If piloting children from the area, they will often go to the trouble of flying them over their homes and schools and other places they know to give them the unique experience of seeing these familiar places from the air. We can’t thank them enough for their kindness and generosity. On Sunday there were 11 aeroplanes; 14 pilots; 48 flights and a total of 148 people flown throughout the day with some of the enthusiastic youngster having 2 or even 3 goes – a pretty fantastic achievement. Thank you all very, very much.

“…thank you for such an awesome day yesterday. It was such a treat for the children and an experience they will never forget. Samuel was very proud of himself that he went up by himself in the plane – and sat in the front.” (Ric and Lindy Garvey)

Sunday was quite a special BADER BRAVES Young Aviators’ Day in other ways, as well. Lady Bader, widow of Sir Douglas, was there enjoying the spectacle and chatting to a few of the children about her famous husband. She mentioned how Sir Douglas would have approved of the Flying Days and how much he would have loved to be there to participate (or, as somebody added, take over…!).

“Thank you all so much for a fantastic day.  We all had such fun….” (The Sneesbys)

Pat Barnard, who has recently founded Art To Fly, a very classy Website selling original aviation art, signed prints and collectibles to raise funds for the Bader Braves Young Aviators Days was also there to hand over the first cheque and donations raised by his Website to Keith Delderfield of the Douglas Bader Foundation. We are deeply grateful to Pat for this wonderful idea and for the work that he has put into making it such a success already. We are very proud to be associated with the venture. You can see more about Art To Fly via the link at the bottom of this article*. It was great for him to be there to share the thoroughly enjoyable and undoubtedly worthwhile end result of his efforts and lovely to think that those efforts will result in the Douglas Bader Foundation being able to hold more of these very special events next year.

Our thanks to those people who gave donations to the charity – one in the form of 2 very large boxes of Walkers crisps as very welcome picnic contribution, thank you David Greenway for a lovely thought, I told you you’d get a mention! – and to some who intend to join us on the London 10k Run and other events next year. (We’ll hold you to that!!)

As always, the biggest thanks of all goes to the children whose enjoyment and enthusiasm make the Young Aviators Days so worthwhile. It is a privilege and a joy to be there to share it with you and your families. Thank you all for coming and for your infectious appreciation. We hope to see you again next year.

Some of the children, families and friends have said that they’ll send in their thoughts and photographs and I’ll add them to this post accordingly. Please keep checking in for updates.

Please click HERE to see a selection of Photographs kindly taken by Pat Barnard.

New Addition: Please click HERE to see a selection of photographs kindly sent to us by Richard Bickers

We are very grateful to Pat Barnard and Richard Bickers for these images, which help to sum up what these Bader Braves Flying Days are all about.

*Please click on the link to visit the Art To Fly Website

In case you haven’t seen it, Jessica Soanes has written a piece about her experience of the day, which is currently published as a separate post. You can read it by clicking HERE. We are very grateful to Jessica for this excellent contribution and hope it will encourage other children and their families to participate. A lovely photograph too; I don’t think there’s any doubt that Jessica enjoyed her experience.

The On Course Foundation has been created to offer injured men and women (initially from the UK and subsequently from the US), who are retired or still serving in the military, the opportunity to play golf and/or work within the industry not just today but for many years to come.

We are delighted to bring this Foundation to your attention and wish it the best of success.

We will bring you updates of The On Course Foundation’s development and, in the meantime, you can click HERE to download the Press Release to find out more.

The TES is looking for teachers or former teachers who have lost a limb and who would be willing to talk about their experiences for a regular TES column called “The Day My Life Changed”. This looks at life changing, personal events that other heads or teachers may be able to relate to, or at the very least, be interested in.

Volunteers would be interviewed over the ‘phone and could be kept anonymous if preferred.

The information you provide could well be of ultimate benefit to other amputees if it helps to raise awareness of particular difficulties or challenges as experienced by amputee teachers and thereby improve conditions for them through increased understanding. Do, please, give it a go.

Hannah Frankel (Writer, TES Magazine) can be contacted either by ‘phone on 020 3194 3117 or by email: Hannah.Frankel@tsleducation.com

Please say that you saw the post on the Douglas Bader Foundation Website

Bob Wilson, the executive director of the N.A.G.A., developed the First Swing program in 1988.

The National Amputee Golf Association announced this year that it was opening its national championships to men and women with disabilities other than a major joint amputation. Blind golfers and golfers with various physical challenges or mobility limitations can now compete as associate members of the amputee association.

The national championship and senior championship are Sept. 7-10 in Nashville.

“An able-bodied golfer can enter, too,” said Bob Wilson, the executive director of the N.A.G.A.

You had better bring a good short game.

The amputee association, founded in 1954, sponsors dozens of tournaments around the country and works to take the game to disabled players across the country. Its First Swing program, operated with the Disabled American Veterans and the P.G.A. of America, provides one- and two-day seminars and clinics to train health-care and golf professionals on how to use adaptive golf as a rehabilitative tool for people with a range of disabilities.

Wilson, who developed the First Swing program in 1988, said the association conducted about 30 clinics yearly.

“There is so much that golf can do as rehabilitative therapy,” he said. “For one, if you can walk, it’s aerobic and nonimpact. It gets you outside in a beautiful setting instead of just rolling an exercise ball around in a rehab gym. In four hours on the course, you’ll use every muscle group. It engages your brain. There is the camaraderie of other players. And maybe most of all, you can develop a sense of accomplishment and achievement. Who does not benefit from that?”

Wilson, who lost his legs in an aircraft carrier accident as a Navy officer in 1974, added, “Our association is actually an amputee support group that meets on the golf course.”

Which is not to say that there aren’t some mighty impressive golfers at the gatherings. Wilson recalled how years ago, he received a call from a trick-shot artist who wanted to perform for a fee at the association’s next national championship.

“Will you hit balls with one arm?” Wilson asked.

“You bet,” the trick-shot artist replied.

“Will you hit balls standing on one leg?”

“Absolutely.”

Wilson said, “We will have plenty of those folks performing already.”

The amputee association is also active in the effort to improve access to golf courses for disabled golfers. It’s a cause often met with resistance because courses frequently have to allow the use of specially equipped single-rider carts — or, even better, have single-rider carts included in the cart fleet available for rent. But some notables are aligning themselves with the movement. Jack Nicklaus has donated his time to redesign and expand the American Lake Veterans Golf Course outside Tacoma, Wash. The 18-hole layout will accommodate disabled golfers.

The N.A.G.A. presses on, sponsoring the Eastern Regional Amputee Golf Championship this Friday through Sunday near Philadelphia. There are tournaments around the nation; for a schedule, go to nagagolf.org.

I asked Wilson last week if an amputee tournament was much different from the average club championship.

“Well, there’s probably a lot more talk about prosthetics,” he said. “But otherwise, maybe not. I have had a lot of people tell me they are better golfers now than before they lost a leg or an arm.

“We do have a lot of people who know how to recover from tough situations.”

By Bill Pennington for the New York Times Golf Blog

This is a story that we have no doubt Douglas Bader would have endorsed wholeheartedly!

Battle of Britain pilots would take to the air sick with fear – but their bravery and skill were all that denied Hitler victory

Scramble!! There is no other word like it for reviving the sensations of the Battle of Britain just 70 years ago.

RAF fighter pilots respond to the scramble

For RAF fighter pilots it was the signal to fling themselves into the sky ready for combat.

For the rest of the dwindling number of us who remember the time, not just the films, it means the awesome spectacle of reckless courage pitted against seemingly overwhelming odds.

Schoolboys like myself built Spitfires and Hurricanes from model kits and pinned newspaper photographs of the aces to the school noticeboard.

The daily totals of German and British planes shot down were announced on the radio or the news-sellers’ billboards, and we followed them like cricket scores.

We knew it was far from being a game. If you lived near a fighter airfield you heard the roar of take-off, even occasionally the faint putter of machine-guns in the clouds.

Planes would plunge in flames out of the skies of the southern counties.

I remember inspecting the wreckage of a Messerschmitt with its crushed nose and up-ended cockpit seat and wondering, did he bail out or did he die in it? But no one can relive the battle except the men who fought it, and here they are in a tide of telling testimony, from interviews with still-living veterans or recorded and written archives, all in the first person.

They have been expertly tracked down and anthologised by our foremost oral historian of war, the self-effacing Max Arthur.

The Battle of Britain was a damn close-run thing, as Wellington said of Waterloo. If we – or rather 2,500 pilots – had lost it, Operation Sea Lion with 175,000 German troops waiting to invade would have gone ahead against the one remaining fighting enemy that Hitler still had. For 13 weeks, Britain lived on the edge of this abyss.

The phases of the battle from July to September 1940 are well documented – at first over the Channel convoys, then the attacks on the southern airfields, then the intended knock-out blow to destroy the RAF during which Fighter Command very nearly ran out of pilots.

At its climax on September 15, every available fighter was in the air and no reserves were left.

Suddenly, on Hitler’s orders, the attack was switched to night bombing of cities – the Blitz. The invasion was postponed – for ever as it turned out. It was a heaven-sent chance to repair the airfields and replace the planes and pilots – one in five of whom had been lost.

How did it feel to live this epic? Unless you know how to fly, the dog fights described are hard to imagine.

But anyone can appreciate the feelings about the Spitfire of the men who flew them: ‘I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. My first take-off was the greatest joy I have known.’ (Pilot Officer Bob Doe)

The Spitfire - beloved by Battle of Britain pilots

Flying Officer Richard Hillary wrote about, ‘the wicked simplicity of its lines. It was sweeter to handle than any other plane I have flown.’ Although German Messerschmitts were faster they could not match its manoeuvrability.

When Goering, who directed the assault, asked his ace pilot what was needed to win the battle, Adolf Galland, who looked just like a moustachioed RAF counterpart, and had 40 kills to his name, simply replied: ‘Spitfires!’ A pilot’s life was spent waiting to go up. If he was ‘on stand-by’, it would be within an hour; if ‘available’ within 15 minutes; or if ‘at readiness’ – immediately.

Pilots at readiness slept and ate at the dispersal hut on the edge of the runway, some playing cards or reading, waiting for the telephone to ring.

Some were physically sick when it did, a moment before jumping into their machines. ‘We all swore we wouldn’t have a telephone at home after the war.’ The famous legless pilot Douglas Bader had his Spitfire parked outside the door where he slept between his two fellow pilots.

When the bell went, they had to put his legs on while two mechanics seized him under the arms to carry him out and heave him onto the wing. All three Spitfires were airborne in two minutes 50 seconds, a better time than any other section managed.

Did these men feel fear as they scrambled? ‘Of course we were frightened – the whole bloody time. There was an awful gut fear as you climbed aboard. But once in combat your adrenalin was pumping and there was no room for fright.’ (Flying Officer A C Deere)

This experience is echoed again and again. Once in action, the fear went. Richard Hillary described his first take off: ‘Time seemed to stand still. I knew that morning I was to kill for the first time. That I might be killed didn’t occur to me. I suppose every pilot knows it cannot happen to him, even when he is taking off for the last time.’

Flying home after his kill he thought of it as a job done. ‘I had a feeling of the essential rightness of it all. He was dead – I was alive. A fighter pilot’s emotions are those of a duellist – cool, precise, impersonal. He is privileged to kill well.’ Flight Lieutenant Billy Drake remembered: ‘If a mate was killed, then it wasn’t us – it was dear old Joe – let’s find out if there was any stuff in his room that we could use. His goods would be distributed among his friends. I don’t think we feared death but it did worry us we could be burned.’ There was a condition known as LMF – lack of moral fibre, meaning shirking further combat.

‘If someone didn’t measure up they suddenly disappeared from the unit. There was no acrimony.’ (Pilot Officer Tom Neil)

Vivid accounts of battle abound. Many of them include being hit by German fire, crashlanding a crippled plane or bailing out by parachute from a burning aircraft.

No instances are known of anyone on either side firing on a descending parachutist.

Let one experience stand for all. At 18,000ft above Southampton Flight Lieutenant James Brindley Nicolson suddenly felt four huge bangs as he was shelled by an unseen Messerschmitt 110. ‘The first tore the hood and a splinter nearly severed my eyelid, the second set my spare petrol tank on fire, the third tore off my left trouser leg, the fourth made quite a mess of my left foot.

‘I was thinking of jumping when the ME 110 whizzed beneath me right in my gun sights. I pressed the button and we both dived down together at 400mph. I remember shouting, “I’ll teach you some manners, you Hun!” ‘ Nicolson landed in a field with his tunic in tatters, his face and hands badly burned.

‘I wasn’t looking very smart. But people who had watched the fight had seen the ME110 dive straight into the sea. So it hadn’t been such a bad day after all.’ Nicolson went into the care of the legendary plastic surgeon Sir Archibald McIndoe at East Grinstead. He was the only fighter pilot in the battle to be awarded the VC.

Richard Hillary wrote a book beginning with a terrifying description of being shot down in flames, trapped by a cockpit hood that wouldn’t open properly – and his subsequent treatment as one of McIndoe’s Guinea Pigs.

It became a war time classic, The Last Enemy (now re-issued by Vintage Books, £8.99). It distils how an admittedly arrogant and charismatic pre-war playboy’s character was changed by the experience of losing friends one by one and having eyelids and lips grafted on to his once so handsome face.

He begged to fly again and was killed at the age of 23. The last enemy, if you remember St Paul, is Death.

Did they hate their enemy, the Hun, in those deadly Messerschmitts?

‘The Germans and ourselves were comparable types. It was a joust to see who came out best.’ (Flight Lieutenant Tom Morgan)

Sometimes they acknowledged their enemy’s prowess. Pilots who downed a bomber would give its map reference to Control so the crew was picked up. Squadron Leader Myles Duke-Woolley flew low over a Heinkel he had forced down. ‘I was rather touched to see the captain and his crew salute me. On impulse I tied a packet of Players in a handkerchief and threw it out. I could see him handing them out to his men.’

The Battle of Britain has been encrusted with myth. The Few have sometimes been caricatured as cheerful, beer-swilling slang-using, devil-may-care ‘kite prangers’. There is none of that jolly exaggeration here. Read it – and remember.

As before, The Games is aimed at primary amputees (people who have undergone an amputation within the last 1-4 years)  and will give them an opportunity to experience a wide variety of sports, taught by specialists from the individual sports governing bodies and associations. They will take part in 13 different sports both recreationally and competitively: providing them with a pathway to join the individual disability sporting associations after the games, where they can progress their skills.

Again as always, this promises to be a fantastic and rewarding weekend both for participants and visitors and you can find out more by clicking HERE to open the downloadable Press Release.

The Douglas Bader Foundation is proud to support the Amputee Games and will feature updates as they occur so please keep checking in for more information.

If you have any trouble downloading the page or you’d simply like more information, please contact:

Catherine Booth cathy.booth@welbeckwealth.com or Kiera Roche at kiera@limbpower.com.

Here is a report by Keith Delderfield, himself the veteran of several runs, who was there supporting his wife, Jess (who has the distinction of having competed in all ten of the London races) and the rest of the team.

HEAT NOT A PROBLEM FOR TEAM BADER

Despite being one of the hottest Sundays of the year in London, Sunday 11^th July didn’t present a problem to the members of TEAM BADER in the 2010 Asics British 10k London Run.

Just a few of the 27000

They joined a field of 27000 athletes ranging from elite International athletes to Fun Runners just doing their bit to raise money for their own favourite charity. Everyone had their own personal goals whether it was posting their best ever time, raising enormous sums for charity or just getting to the end in one piece. One thing was for sure, the atmosphere was undeniably fantastic as always and each of our TEAM BADER runners appeared to have enjoyed a super Sunday morning through the streets of London cheered all the way from the start at Hyde Park Corner to the finish on Whitehall by thousands of well wishers, supporters, family and friends.

We are indebted to everyone who supported our cause this year and hope that they will all be there on the start line on Sunday 10^th July 2011 – I am sure they will as most have run in the race many times now; our one newcomer to the event this year was Alan Dodington-Boyes although he is a veteran of Bader fund raising treks.

Our small but finely tuned team of elite athletes were:-

Katrina Christy, Graham Toms, Paul Layer, Keith Lebihan, Tessa Barfield, Vicky Edwards, Alan Dodington-Boyes, Jess Delderfield

If you would like to join us in 2011 and help raise a few pounds in much needed sponsorship then reserve you place now; we can’t guarantee the weather but we can guarantee that you will have a great morning, make some great new friends, be of great help to the charity with your sponsorship and get a cuppa & sticky bun at the end of your challenge!!

Register your interest at douglasbaderfdn@btinternet.com straight away!!

Graham Toms sprints gently under Hungerford Bridge

Jess Delderfield and Graham Toms

Jess enjoys her Sunday run!! She has competed in all ten of the London races

L-R Graham Toms (He hets in all the pictures) Katrina Christy, Jess Delderfield & Keith Lebihan

L-R Vicky Edwards, Graham Toms & Tessa Barfield

MANY CONGRATULATIONS AND THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR VALIANT EFFORTS ON BEHALF OF THE DOUGLAS BADER FOUNDATION!

But that was before his stunning achievements during the Battle Of Britain.

After that, they thought Eric was ten feet tall.

The fight above the skies of southern England – which started 70 years ago today – was perhaps the proudest chapter in this nation’s history.

And Eric Lock was its most successful British-born pilot, bringing down no fewer than 16 German planes.

Ironically, he had not thought much of his first trip in a plane, a short flight with a flying circus on his 14th birthday.

But when the chips were down, Eric soared to the occasion.

He flew a Spitfire, the legendary fighter aircraft whose name came from an Elizabethan word for someone with a fiery character.

Eric Lock with his Spitfire and the 26 swastikas denoting "kills"

Sawn Off Lockie might not have needed the famous bulge in its cockpit installed for taller pilots.

But his pluck and spirit certainly showed why the plane’s 27ft ammo belt gave rise to the phrase about giving someone “the whole nine yards”.

Born to a Shropshire farming family, Eric was only 20 when the war broke out. If there was going to be action, he said, he wanted to do his bit.

So he joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve and became one of what Winston Churchill would memorably christen “The Few”.

Just how outnumbered we were makes for scary reading.

When the Battle Of Britain started on July 10, 1940, the Luftwaffe had 2,500 planes ready for action, the British just 660.

The Germans estimated that they could wipe out RAF Fighter Command in only four days, and the whole of our aircraft industry in a month.

The RAF gave our boys the “ten rules of combat” to make the most of what we had, such as “never fly straight and level for more than 30 seconds”.

But Eric and his mates were still massive underdogs.

“Dowding’s chicks”, as they were known – after Hugh Dowding, the head of Fighter Command – sometimes had to fly five sorties a day each.

One pilot first saw action after only five hours’ flying time.

On August 15 Eric had his first success when he downed a Messerschmitt fighter plane.

And after Eric was transferred from Yorkshire to RAF Hornchurch in Essex, he really got a chance to show what he was made of.

Within just a week he’d shot down another eight planes. Most of his flights took place against medical advice because he had injured his leg.

Getting five kills officially made you an “ace”. Sawn Off was on his way to becoming a double ace. Conditions in the skies were hellish. During the Battle Of Britain an RAF pilot had an average life expectancy of just four weeks.

But, gradually, it dawned on the Germans that, however many planes they sent over, heroes with sheer guts such as Eric Lock were waiting for them.

Eric even chased one opponent all the way across the Channel to France before shooting him down over Boulogne.

As he guided his trusty Spitfire back to Britain, he thought of his childhood sweetheart Peggy, the former Miss Shrewsbury he had married just before the battle began.

Many of the pilots got through the ordeal with their sense of humour.

The most famous pilot of all – Douglas Bader – showed just how wicked that humour could be after the war, when he gave a talk at a posh girls’ school.

He said: “So there were two of the f***ers behind me, three f***ers to my right, another f***er on the left…”

At this point the headmistress panicked. She said: “I think you should know, girls, that the Fokker was a type of German plane.”

Bader replied: “Don’t know about that. These chaps were flying Messerschmitts.”

As August turned into September, the Nazi leaders realised this was not going to be the easy victory they had expected. And they made things worse with a hideous tactical error.

One of Britain’s few advantages was radar, which gave them advance warning of German attacks.

But for some bizarre reason Hermann Goering, the head of the Luftwaffe, decided radar was not important, and ordered his planes to switch tactics, targeting cities instead of the radar bases.

Military historians now believe that the RAF were just 24 hours away from defeat when he made his crucial mistake.

Hitler was rattled, too. On September 4 he made a speech in Germany, joking: “In England they’re filled with curiosity and keep asking, ‘Why doesn’t he come?’ Be calm. He’s coming! He’s coming!”

Secretly, though, he knew things had gone badly wrong.

For months he had been planning his invasion of Britain – Operation Sea Lion – but now it had to be postponed.

The Germans tried claiming that they had shot down 3,058 RAF planes. In fact, it was only 650.

By the end of October it was obvious that the Battle Of Britain was over.

And it had turned Eric Lock into a hero.

With 16 kills under his belt he was now a triple ace, and had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

]]> http://douglasbaderfoundation.com/2010/07/11/battle-of-britain-anniversary-spitfire-ace-with-26-kills/feed/ 0 http://douglasbaderfoundation.com/2010/07/10/art-to-fly-official-press-release-information/ http://douglasbaderfoundation.com/2010/07/10/art-to-fly-official-press-release-information/#comments Sat, 10 Jul 2010 11:18:49 +0000 wendy http://douglasbaderfoundation.co.uk/?p=2963 The Press Release for Art To Fly, a unique fundraising Website developed by Pat Barnard to raise funds for the Douglas Bader Foundation’s Disabled Children’s Flying Days, has just gone out to various Aviation Magazines and National and Local Daily and Weekly Press. You will find a link to the Website underneath the editorial: ART [...]]]> The Press Release for Art To Fly, a unique fundraising Website developed by Pat Barnard to raise funds for the Douglas Bader Foundation’s Disabled Children’s Flying Days, has just gone out to various Aviation Magazines and National and Local Daily and Weekly Press.

You will find a link to the Website underneath the editorial:

ART TO FLY

A BRIEF CHRONOLOGY

by

David Bickers
Chairman of the Douglas Bader Foundation and Douglas’ son-in-law

AVIATION ART –THE BEGINNING

Art to Fly is the brainchild of Pat Barnard. It has been established as a non–profit organisation solely to raise money for the Douglas Bader Foundation’s Disabled Children Flying Days. I have known Pat for a long time and am pleased to have the opportunity to work with him on this very worthwhile project. As many know, Pat Barnard is credited with founding the aviation art business as we know it today, almost single–handed.

When he began publishing aviation art over 30 years ago nobody had thought of the idea of obtaining important and relevant signatures of wartime heroes to accompany those of artists on military art prints. The idea was so new that, understandably, when approached, distinguished ex–military personnel had serious reservations about becoming part of what was to be a commercial enterprise.

Being inherently modest and unassuming, distinguished wartime personalities believed that endorsing prints with their signatures would somehow compromise their integrity and reputation. A natural reaction to such a new idea.

Although it had not been tested, from the very outset Pat was convinced that adding significant and relevant signatures to prints would make them eminently more attractive to collectors, and in time increase their value. Determined to find a way around the initial resistance he looked for ways to convince distinguished military figures that their integrity would be in no way be diminished by signing prints.

Pat felt the most obvious route to introduce the model would be to link the idea to a fund–raising exercise, and indeed this is how his Military Gallery publishing business began.

Today, three and a half decades after he launched the concept, when it’s common practice for anyone publishing aviation art to add signatures of pilots and aircrew, it is difficult to imagine there was ever a problem.

Pat transformed the way aviation art is collected, and his faith in the idea of adding aircrew signatures to prints depicting the great air battles of WWII, has been totally vindicated. Today the concept proves irresistible to collectors of aviation prints who, into the bargain, gain the added investment element those signatures provide. But for his determination, this concept of collecting military art might never have happened!

SIR DOUGLAS BADER

After his initial success, and having a strong interest in aviation (he was himself a pilot), Pat approached Sir Douglas Bader to ask if he would sign a print edition featuring a WWII aviation scene. Douglas Bader had lost both legs in a pre–war flying accident, yet commanded a Hurricane squadron during the Battle of Britain, and later led the famous Tangmere Spitfire Wing in 1941. Bader was certainly one of the highest profile figures from British WWII aviation, and Pat knew if he could convince this national hero to participate he would be able to persuade others too.

Once his decision was made, Douglas Bader became full of enthusiasm for the project and immediately suggested he would ask WWII’s top–scoring Allied fighter pilot, Air Vice–Marshal Johnnie Johnson, also to sign the prints – the two had flown together in 1941. So it was that both Aces signed what was to become the very first aviation art print endorsed with the signatures of two famous WWII fighter pilots to be marketed on both sides of the Atlantic.

The print was from a painting by Robert Taylor, a budding young artist who Pat was to promote and publish throughout the next 30 years. Simply titled “Spitfire”, this print launched the pilot–signed aviation art movement as it widely operates today – now an accepted and recognised genre within the popular art print industry.

Sir Douglas Bader took a personal interest in the new publishing operation and became a great ambassador for the Military Gallery. He introduced the idea of signing prints to a large number of fighter pilots he’d flown with, and even some he’d fought against: Indeed it was in Douglas Bader’s office in Ascot that Pat first met General Adolf Galland, commander of all Luftwaffe day and night fighters in WWII. The General was likewise impressed with Pat’s publishing ideas and in turn helped recruit signatures of many of the leading Luftwaffe aces who’d survived WWII.

The Military Gallery couldn’t have gained two more influential friends at this early stage of its aviation art publishing activity, and this support has much to do with the pilot–signed print concept quickly gathering momentum and credibility.

Sir Douglas believed there was some importance in what the Military Gallery was publishing, often saying he saw it as helping to create awareness about WWII aviation among the younger generations, and I believe he was correct about that. One museum director even wrote that it “rightly helped immortalise the gallant endeavours of aviators in WWII ” It probably did that too, though I am sure the aviators who have signed prints never thought about it in this way.

Though always modest about his own feats, Douglas Bader was ever keen to help Pat recruit other distinguished fighter pilots, and he particularly went out of his way to introduce bomber crews, whom he always held in great esteem.

By taking an active part, Sir Douglas Bader, General Galland, together with Group Captain (later, Lord) Leonard Cheshire, VC, were largely instrumental in helping the Military Gallery legitimise the concept of adding distinguished aviators’ signatures to art prints. By the beginning of the 1980’s all the earlier reservations about signing prints had been dispelled, and some of the most famous and distinguished military personnel from all sides of the great conflict were placing their sought–after signatures on Military Gallery prints.

It is in recognition of the part Sir Douglas Bader played in the very early days of his publishing business, that Pat Barnard has set up Art to Fly to raise funds for the Douglas Bader Foundation’s Disabled Children Flying Days.

During the 30 years Pat owned the Military Gallery he and his family personally collected many items of aviation artwork and militaria, including original paintings and drawings, pilot–signed prints and books, aviation articles, artefacts, and other signed documents, even an ammunition box full of genuine WWII Merlin engine valves .

Most of this private collection, together with some personal items that belonged to Sir Douglas kindly donated by Lady Bader, as well as many other highly collectible paintings, prints, and memorabilia donated by generous supporters, or bought–in specifically to raise funds, are offered for sale through Art To Fly. All the profits go to the Douglas Bader Foundation’s Disabled Children’s Flying Days.

When you buy something you’d like to own from ART TO FLY, knowing your purchase will benefit some disabled children will, I am sure, multiply the pleasure you get from your purchase many times over. Your generous support will be greatly appreciated.

With every good wish,

DavidBickers
Chairman
Douglas Bader Foundation

Please click on the link to visit the impressive Website: http://www.ArtToFly.org/

We hope you’ll agree that it’s one to be proud of and it goes without saying that we are indebted to Pat Barnard for its creation.

For most Calcuttans, Red Road along the Maidan is one of the few remaining links with World War II. Then a red-clay strip, from which the road derived its name, it served as a runway for Hurricanes taking off to fight the British empire’s war against the Japanese. Almost 8,000 km to the west there is another link, in the person of Dilip Sarkar, a former policeman and one of the UK’s leading authorities on the Battle of Britain.

Sarkar, 49, has written 26 books, 23 of them on the Battle of Britain or Spitfire pilots in World War II. The latest, The Few: The Battle of Britain in the Words of the Pilots, was released in November last year ahead of the 70th anniversary celebrations that start today, July 10.

Worcester-based Sarkar was born in Calcutta to a Bengali father, Tridibendra Chandra, and a British mother, Janet. His parents had met when Tridibendra was studying engineering in Worcester; the family returned to the UK when Sarkar was about a year old.

Father and son both breached the race barrier, each in his own way. Sarkar’s father — known as ‘Trid’ — became Worcester’s first ‘coloured’ magistrate in 1978. In 1983, Dilip became one of the UK’s first coloured policemen, a job he held for 22 years. In 2003 he was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for his services to aviation history.

For all his own, not inconsiderable achievements, Sarkar is immensely proud of his father. “Although he was an engineer, he devoted his life to race relations and charity work,” he says. A Quaker by conversion, Trid was also associated with Swanirvar, a non-profit organisation that does development work in rural Bengal, until his early death in 2001 at the age of 68.

It was his civic-minded father who urged him into the civil service, but Sarkar owes his interest in military history to a neighbour who served in the Royal Navy during World War II and inspired him with “tales of derring-do”.

His obsession with the Battle of Britain began at age eight when he saw the eponymous hit movie with its dazzling star cast: Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine, Christopher Plummer, Susannah York. An aero-modeller uncle introduced him to the Spitfire, and stoked another life-long fascination. Ten years later, he began to research this most famous of air wars that thwarted Hitler’s plan of invading the British Isles. Sarkar juggled his policeman’s career — he’s been everything from a beat cop to a detective — with what eventually became his vocation.

Sarkar says the human stories and experiences of this battle interest him most. Indeed, he’s interviewed more Battle of Britain pilots than almost any other historian. “If anyone ever needs to know anything about the RAF during the summer of 1940, don’t ask the Few, ask him!” wrote George Unwin, a Battle of Britain fighter ace, about Sarkar’s book Last of the Few, which is due out during the 70th anniversary celebrations.

Both The Few and Last of the Few capture the stories of an elite group of fighter pilots whom Winston Churchill immortalised with a much-quoted tribute in the House of Commons: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” Ever since, the pilots who participated in the 16-week war are known as ‘The Few’.

For Sarkar, these two books (and several before) provided a chance to capture the unique stories of a generation that is now in its 80s and 90s — men like former Spitfire pilot Ken Wilkinson, 93, who signed copies at the book release.

Sarkar has not limited himself to narrative history, nor is his outlook clouded by the heroic romanticism that has developed around this 1940 battle. He was, for instance, the first to write about the fact that Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader, the iconic legless fighter pilot, was not in fact shot down by the enemy over France but by friendly fire. He also shows that although Bader remains widely and rightly admired he was not the wildly popular leader of legend. A new biography is in the works, he says.

Though Sarkar has emerged as a respected scholar of the Battle of Britain and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he is not a historian by training. This is an omission he started repairing in 2008, when he began a degree in history at the University of Worcester. That degree completed, he is now focusing on a PhD from Birmingham University’s Department for War Studies — specifically, the Centre for Air Power Studies.

His thesis will be on the Big Wing Controversy, the topic of a book he published in 1997, about tactics between high commanders and politicians that broke out in the Battle of Britain.

He has another book planned, in which he will compare the performance and contribution of two fighters, the Spitfire and Hurricane, during the Battle of Britain. He’s keen to disprove the notion that the Hurricane shot down more fighters during the battle than the Spitfire did. He is also working with ITV on a programme on the Duxford airfield, the base for Douglas Bader’s famous squadron.

With such a very British interest and a British upbringing — thanks to his Quaker father he attended a Quaker boarding school — it’s no surprise that Sarkar sees himself as English. He says he hasn’t been back to India since he left as an infant and, except one cousin with whom he keeps in touch via Facebook, he doesn’t have links with his birthplace.

Meanwhile, he clears up a little point of history. Pilots of several nationalities flew for the RAF during the Battle of Britain, which the RAF dates between July 10 and October 31, 1940 (though it didn’t start and finish quite so definitively). They include Czechs, Poles, South Africans, Americans and so on. Despite many claims to the contrary, he says no Indian pilot was involved in the battle. “There were several Indian pilots who flew for the RAF during the war, but none of them flew any operational sorties for any of the accredited groups during that 16-week period,” he says firmly. “All such claims are spurious.”

World War II fighter pilot ace Douglas Bader discusses his fame and why it is so important to mark anniversaries of major historical events such as the …
www.bbc.co.uk/archive/battleofbritain/11406.shtml

ART TO FLY features a wonderful collection of Aviation themed Original Paintings, Original Drawings, Rare Editions, Collectibles.  Painted by respected Aviation Artists and many signed with the original signatures of Fighter Command legends, Battle of Britain pilots and holders of the VC.

ART TO FLY is a non-profit website. 100% of all profits go to support the Douglas Bader Foundation’s Disabled Children’s Flying Days. Run by the Foundation, this programme gives young children who have lost limbs, or are otherwise disabled, the opportunity to experience the thrill of flight and a day for them and their families to remember.

Please take a look at Testimonials under the heading “About Us” on our website’s navigation bar, and read what Louis Stephen has written about his experience of a Flying Day. He is very disabled but his letter says everything!

We thank you for your past and ongoing support.

David Bickers

Chairman, The Douglas Bader Foundation

The Douglas Bader Foundation is enormously grateful to Pat Barnard who not only had the idea but then put a huge amount of time and effort into turning the idea into this very impressive reality in support of the Bader Braves Flying Days. To quote David Bickers in a paragraph from the Art To Fly Website:

“As many know, Pat Barnard is credited with founding the aviation art business as we know it today, almost single–handed.

When he began publishing aviation art over 30 years ago nobody had thought of the idea of obtaining important and relevant signatures of wartime heroes to accompany those of artists on military art prints. The idea was so new that, understandably, when approached, distinguished ex–military personnel had serious reservations about becoming part of what was to be a commercial enterprise.”

The Bader Braves Flying Days are already a proven success and it’s wonderful to think that, because of Art To Fly, many more disabled children will be able to experience the thrill of what is often their first flight in a light aircraft and to share the fun of one of these special Events with their families.

In the words of the Loosemore family who attended the Flying Day at Goodwood, we hope to “put a permanent smile…” on many more faces in the future.

As always, we are extremely grateful to everyone involved for all that went into giving the Braves and their families such an exciting and memorable day out. Your efforts and generosity were certainly appreciated by all who attended.

Although rather more associated with horse racing at Goodwood, Glorious Goodwood is a very appropriate descriptive for the Bader Braves Young Aviators Day very generously hosted by Goodwood Aero Club on Sunday 13^th June.

A Boeing Stearman

Fourteen Bader Braves gathered at the Aero Club along with their families to enjoy a day flying in a variety of aeroplanes donated and piloted by their owners, aeroplanes ranging from a luxurious Cessna 421 to a challenging Boeing Stearman and including a host of exciting models in between.

The day was also supported by personnel from Tangmere Military Aviation Museum who provided a flight simulator that was in non-stop use by the youngsters throughout the day, flying a Chipmunk from Tangemere Airfield to Goodwood; along with Blue Watch from West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service, Chichester who brought along an appliance giving the Braves (& most Mums & Dads too) an insight into the working of the machine, the role of the crew and an opportunity to handle and try some of the equipment.

The management team at the Aero Club provided a “Bouncy Castle” and organised the most superb weather for everyone to enjoy their picnic lunches and, all in all, a fabulous day!

David Bickers, Chairman of The Douglas Bader Foundation and stepson-in-law of Bader commented “this is clearly one or our most successful Braves events so far. It is good to be back at Goodwood, where we have enjoyed such a fruitful relationship over many years and I am delighted to learn that the intention is for this event to become an annual fixture in the calendar of the Aero Club”

Keith Delderfield, Director of the Foundation added “we have been so well received here today and the help and support that we have been given by the management, staff and members of the Aero Club has been second to none. One only has to listen to the comments of the parents and see the look on the faces of the young Bader Braves as they leave the aircraft to know that this event has been enormously successful and greatly appreciated by all of those who have benefited from such generosity – thankyou Goodwood, we are indebted to all of you that helped”

A Young Pilot...

...all set to go!

The Douglas Bader name and, more latterly, the charitable Foundation established in Bader’s name and charged with the task of continuing his inspirational work amongst the disabled community, has enjoyed a long association with Goodwood; indeed it was from Goodwood during WW2, when its official title was RAF Westhampnett, that Douglas Bader led the Tangmere Wing and from where, at 10.40hrs on Monday 9^th August 1941, Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader lead out 616 Squadron on his last operational mission; a short while later during a hostile engagement over the French coast Bader went missing and ended his war as a PoW in Colditz. On August 9^th 2001 at precisely 10.40 hrs the Bader association with Goodwood was renewed when a statue commissioned by The Duke of Richmond & Gordon and Lord March was unveiled by The Duke and Lady Bader OBE to commemorate the 60^th Anniversary of this event and the statue remains the only one commemorating Douglas Bader. Bader Braves has been created to provide support and opportunity for young people suffering disability and was launched at the RAF Museum, Hendon in February 2010 to mark the centenary of Bader’s birth.

We’ve received a lovely message from the Loosemore family who clearly enjoyed the day enormously:

We are very grateful to all those who take the trouble to send in photographs for us to put up on the Website. It is lovely to see the evidence of the success of these Flying Days. Hopefully their pictures will bring back happy memories for those of you who were there and will inspire others who weren’t to put your names down for one.

Cllr Roxanne Ransley, elected as Tring Town Mayor on May 10^th 2010, (Tring is the home of the HQ of The Douglas Bader Foundation), has pledged her support to our charity throughout her year of office. The Foundation will benefit from a number of the Mayors fund raising intiatives that will take place throughout her term of office and already her charity fund has received its first contribution from local business, Tring Brewery Company.

Tring Brewery Company Raises Funds for DBF

Following a very successful Spirit of Tring event on 15^th/16^th May the Tring Brewery Company (www.tringbrewery.co.uk ) generously chose to donate a proportion of the proceeds from the bar to The Foundation through the Tring Town Mayors Charity Fund. Our picture shows Foundation Director, Keith Delderfield in attendance as Cllr Roxanne Ransley, Mayor of Tring, receives a cheque for £891.08 from Richard Shardlow, Director of Tring Brewery Company on Monday 24th May 2010.

From left to right: Keith Delderfield (DBF), Cllr. Roxanne Ransley (new Tring Town Mayor), Richard Shardlow (Tring Brewery)

Keith Delderfield expressed his gratitude to both Mayor Ransley and Mr Shardlow for such generous support pointing out to Mr Shardlow that over the years he has himself been an equally keen supporter of his company!!

Cllr Ransley, Tring Town Mayor said “I am delighted that I am able to play a part in helping and supporting The Douglas Bader Foundation in its efforts to help so many people with disabilities strive to achieve their own personal goals. Douglas Bader was, of course , most famous for his exploits as a RAF fighter ace during WW2 but my support is very much in support of the inspirational work that he started amongst the disabled community of our country and for which he was knighted in 1976; I greatly admire and I am proud to be associated with such a committed charity as that which continues to deliver his message in such a positive and effective way”.

Foundation Director of Operations, Keith Delderfield said that he was delighted that the “home town” of the charity had acknowledged and given such high profile support to its work.

Pupils at Douglas Bader Pupil Referral Unit in Coltishall, Norfolk have been learning circus and capoeira skills to help get more out of physical education.

Douglas Bader Centre Pupil Referral Unit (PRU) has been exploring the enquiry question “How can we make our pupils’ experience of physical education (PE) more creative?”

The students have been learning circus and Capoeira skills working with capoeria artists and circus performer Ken Farquar. They have then been set the task of finding creative ways to transfer those skills both to staff and to other pupils.

This project arises from the need to find ways to engage students in PE and to extend physical activity to all PRU students in an environment where students attend part-time and for relatively short periods.

The pupils were given the opportunity to try as many techniques as possible including juggling, diabolo, acrobatics, clowning, stilt-walking, unicycle and low wire work. They then focused on one or two techniques for which they had developed an aptitude with a view to devising the best way to share those techniques with other pupils and staff at the PRU.

The Douglas Bader Centre has also been utilising new technology to encourage increased physical activity in students. The centre has invested in a ‘Wii Fit’ computer console which has proved very popular with students and has reinforced the concept that PE can be fun and engaging.

As a culmination to the project, students from Douglas Bader Centre worked with one of the world’s leading circus companies, NoFit State Circus, as part of their Parklife show at this year’s Norfolk & Norwich Festival.

The students were able to share their newly developed skills with professional circus performers in a unique creative exchange.

Learning Outcomes

• Improved ability to cope with new tasks and learning new skills
• Improved non verbal reasoning skills
• Improved physical skills and coordination
• Pupils encouraged to attempt challenges and take risks
• Development of skills to help pupils in the next part of their educational journey, i.e. working with new people in challenging situations.

Here you will be able to read stories and information relating to Douglas Bader and the Douglas Bader Foundation.

We already have a fascinating article on Colditz Castle, where Douglas was held prisoner of war by the Germans, written by Steve McNeice (only the 2nd double amputee to escape from Colditz!).  Being a double amputee himself, Steve found out at first hand how difficult the terrain alone must have been for Sir Douglas during his time there.

We also have a warm and in-depth interview between Gautam Lewis, founder of the wonderful organisation, Freedom in the Air, and David Bickers, Chairman of the DBF.

Both are well worth checking out and we are very grateful to both these contributors.

We are always looking for contributions so, if you have a story you think would be relevant and that you’d like to share, do please contact us by clicking HERE.

We hope you enjoy this new addition to the Website.

Peter, who works from  his studio in Somerset, has been a sculptor for many years and has the accolade of having exhibited at the prestigious Royal West of England Academy. Initially working on animal pieces and creating sculptures for Greenpeace and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, Peter’s personal love of aviation and military history led him to the creation of a series of portrait busts of famous and inspirational military and aviation personalities and it is one of these fine pieces that he has so kindly donated to the Foundation.

Peter says: “When making a portrait, I think it is very important to capture the essence of their personality as well as a good physical likeness.”

We think he has succeeded absolutely in this stunning sculpture. He has managed to capture not just the strength of character and determination that most people would immediately associate with Sir Douglas, but also his sensitivity and sense of humour. As he said, this is a man who experienced extraordinary physical pain and survived a brush with death closer than most. Those things are bound to leave their mark on a person.

We will publicise the auction once we have details so watch this space.

In the meantime you can see more of Peter’s work by visiting his Websites:

http://www.peterclose.com/

http://www.militarysculpture.co.uk/

Our grateful thanks to you, Peter. We intend to do your generous gesture proud!

A report by Keith Delderfield, the Douglas Bader Foundation Director of Operations, who was there on the day:

A letter from one of the Young Aviators:

dear Keith ,
i would like to thankyou for such a lovely day at
caernarfon airfeild . When the letter came through from school i was
thrilled to hear that i could go up in an aeroplane forb the fist time
through the kindness of the Douglas Bader foundation . I was so
exsited before we arrived  . The flight was wonderful , I was so
pleased that i could fly over my house near Harlech . I think we were
very lucky with the weather also on sunday it was sunny but the
volcanic ash closed the airfeild . Once again thankyou for a wonderful
day from Alistair  Mackenzie-Grieve

…and one from a delighted mother:

Hi

Just wanted to say a big thank you for the event last Saturday, both myself and my children had a wonderful time.  The experience of flying in a small plane was amazing and the views were stunning.  This was also a fantastic opportunity for my son who has autism who enjoyed it immensely and the photographs we took he has taken into school to share with his class mates.  We also visited the museum on the day which was unlike many museums being interesting, fun and extremely child friendly.  All in all it was a day out to remember, we also had the chance to meet other families with disabled children and it was nice to attend an event with families in similar situations and circumstance.

Please pass on my thanks to all the people who gave up their time to make this event possible, it was a brilliant day and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thank you once again

Helen Evans

and another, who has kindly sent us some photographs of her daughter, Elinor, clearly thoroughly enjoying her Flying Day experience:

Hello,

Just to say many thanks for Elinor’s wonderful day yesterday. I hope you all got home safe.

As promised some of our photos.

Thank you so much and Best wishes,

Dawn Marjoram