It Was 70 Years Ago …

Chidham 1 Chidham 2 – the crash-site is alongside the copse on the horizon Chidham 3 Chidham 4 Chidham 5 Coastal signpost Bosham boat West Wittering flag Elaine Dunes, East Head Prospecting East Head panorama 1 Panorama 2 Panorama 3

Next month, more precisely 16 August, will mark the seventieth anniversary of the day Tim was shot down during the Battle of Britain, with his Hurricane crashing into the south end of the Chidham peninsula, part of Chichester Harbour, and him landing by parachute near West Wittering. We got as close as we could to the crash site without infringing private property more than we already had done to get to the coastal path, then walked on through a haze of butterflies – and what I think were thunder flies, which blackened by orange shirt at one stage. One treat was seeing an egret on the shore at one point.

After a ploughman’s lunch in Bosham, we drove south to West Wittering, where we parked and made our way out onto East Head, a wonderful complex of sand dunes. The landscape was intensely familiar, given that we have quite a number of the paintings that Caroline did many years ago after visiting the place, for the same reason that we were there. A huge, atmospheric sky, but the rain – which had seemed imminent for much of the day, held off.