A unique and very
distinctive memorial caught the eye while working at the annual SMMT Test Day
at Wetherby. While driving through the
North Yorkshire village of Tockwith, with a motoring journalist colleague from
the Greenock Telegraph, we stopped to have a look - which prompted a Google
search this morning.
This memorial was erected just 3 years ago to
mark the 70th anniversary of an event which happened two months after the close
of World War 2 in 1945. A young, but
experienced, pilot was returning to the nearby RAF Marston Moor airfield
at the conclusion of a night training flight when it was reported and recorded
that his Stirling bomber aircraft stalled and crashed into the village of
Tockwith.
All six members of the flight
crew were killed and one villager, although given the serious nature of the
crash and the amount of devastation caused to homes, the local folks were
indeed fortunate to have escaped a much worse tragedy.
But what caught the eye was the name and
title of the first casualty on the memorial plaque inscribed above the names of
the flight crew. It was the local postmaster Arthur Carlill who had been in bed
above his Post Office on that fateful night when the aircraft crashed into it
and demolished it.
Coincidentally, just outside Tockwith to the
east of the village is Marston Moor, the site of a much more bloody event where
the Parliamentarians clashed with the Royalists during the English Civil War in
the 17th century. The battle commenced around 7.30pm and by midnight around
4,500 soldiers were lying dead or fatally wounded on the field with the
Parliamentarians under Oliver Cromwell claiming a famous victory. Four and half
thousand soldiers slaughtered in the dark on a barren English moor in four and
a half hours. It doesn't bear thinking about, eh?
But here's the thing, the Scots were very
much involved in this 'English' Civil War as the 11,000 strong Parliamentarian
army was bolstered by 13,500 troops and cavalry from the Scottish Covenanters.
We stopped at that memorial too, but somehow
the Tockwith air disaster memorial affected us both more. We were both silent
in the car for a quite a few miles after that. Perhaps it had something to do
with the evocative skeletal metal sculpture depicting a Stirling bomber in
flight. A nice touch were the fresh and well cared-for flowers growing in containers
around the base of this memorial.
More info here on the Tockwith air crash here
if you're interested:
http://www.tockwith.gov.uk/Tockwith-Wilstrop-Parish-Council/UserFiles/Files/Forthcoming%20Events%20and%20Information/TWPC%20Press%20release%20re%20monument.pdf