Mr Bob Duffet gave the second part of his talk on Croydon Airport from 1939 to 1959, to the club on Wednesday the 4th November.

Bob gave an enthralling talk. He had worked at the Airport for many of these years and had trained as an airline pilot.

He explained that originally there were 2 Airports adjacent to one another, one of them being a military airport.

The civil airport had British, French and German sections housing their respective airlines.

The British section comprised Imperial Airlines and British Overseas Airways Corporation.

During the 2nd World War Croydon Airport was important militarily and was badly bombed in the conflict, destroying the main terminal building and killing some of the staff.

However it was soon rebuilt. The talk was well illustrated. He said the aircraft were often difficult to start and took time.

Passengers had frequently to wait till the engines were started before embarking.

There were a number of crashes and accidents which would now be avoided with today’s safety regulations.

Finally the Airport closed in 1959 to be replaced by Heathrow.

For more information on our Club, please contact our secretary Terry on 01689 826478.