https://padlet.com/thehigginsbedford/DenBurchmoresCollection The audio below is a recording of Dennis Burchmore speaking about his life while interviewed in his shed, which served as his study. This place held his personal collection of airship memorabilia, library and archive documents. Den enlisted with the Royal Air Force during the Second World War and trained in Barrage Balloon handling at Cardington. He went on to have a long career at RAF Cardington, eventually employed as a curator. The Airship Heritage Trust (AHT) collection was stored in the sheds and displayed in buildings on site. Den rescued many items from destruction. The collection was transferred to the National Museum of the Royal Navy at Yeovilton in 2000. After Den retired he continued to invite people to his study at home to share his personal memorabilia and passion for the airship heritage. You can hear Den speaking about his experiences and read a transcript of the interview below. en-us 2020-04-22 10:44:44 UTC 2021-08-16 16:12:00 UTC hello@padlet.com TheHigginsBedford https://padlet.com/thehigginsbedford/DenBurchmoresCollection/wish/1680641340

]]> 2021-08-16 15:52:17 UTC https://padlet.com/thehigginsbedford/DenBurchmoresCollection/wish/1680641340 TheHigginsBedford https://padlet.com/thehigginsbedford/DenBurchmoresCollection/wish/1680648073 No, I’ll tell you what. If you step outside and come in, right? And I’ll say to you, “Look at everything in here, list it, describe it, give it a number and there’s the record, and there’s where it’s stored”. And counting the photos, there’s 33,000 items. And lots have never been looked at, at all. We, we had a room that was bigger than this which was full of drawers like that. We had to [inaudible] each one of them, which was all medals.
Have you got a favourite object in this shed?
Yes, all of it.
All of it
[Laughter – Coughing] If you’re a collector everything’s your favourite, isn’t it, you know. Because it’s part of, there’s still beer in those bottles. We bought them in, when we went to Germany on their tour out there. There was another one in the garage, a spare one. But you buy them because that’s what they’re there for. There’s a little model of the Airlander right behind you, your man’s head here, little squeechy thing. Now they’ve all got a history, everything’s got a history, it’s fascinating, and to be a curator – Oh, you were asking earlier – yeah.
I had a friend who worked in the top office at RAE, she worked on the draftsmen side, and she rang me up one day and she said, ‘cause we knew Cardington was closing, and the balloon works was closing here, and she said there’s some jobs and they get these, because you’re in the white collar worker side, you get these handouts saying jobs here and there and everywhere. She said, “It’s for a curator at Cardington”, which was in the building I was in, you know. So I said “Oh, I’ll have a go at that”. So I walked in the office and said to the boss who was there at the time, and I said, “Nah,” he said, I knew him well, you know, you can talk to him like I’m talking to you. He said, “No, you wouldn’t get a job like that.” he said. I said “Well, I can have a day out in London - for nothing”.
So I went up for my interview and you go in, you know, and who should be at the table but the boss at Cardington, my boss at Cardington, Ray Funnell, who’s deceased, and Squadron Leader from the RAF Museum, you know retired, runs the RAF museum in London, he was up there, and the man who does the paperwork, you know, the admin. Now I was there about as long as it’s taken me to tell you, and they put something on the table and said, “What’s that?” And I said it was so-and-so and they said, “Oh yeah. And what’s that?” and I said that’s something, “Oh. Ok then, alright off you go then, we’ll let you know.” So the phone rang when I got home, it’s Ray, “Hello Ray,” he said, “You’ve got the job.” [Laughter]
[00:02:56]
So I arrived there knowing nothing. They sent me, Ray sent me down the Shed one day, he said, “They’re shutting down RAE, so we’re saying - Come down, if there’s anything you want for the museum, come down, somebody come down and give us a list.”
Day I started work up there Ray said to me, he was the boss, he said, “Den,” he said, “I know you don’t know a lot about what’s here.” I said, “Well I know quite a lot but I don’t know as much as you do.” He said “Well, there’s a rack there” you’re talking these big racks, you know. He said, “Go through that rack ‘cause its stuff that’s been donated, been brought here, we’ve never had time to look at it. Can you list it all?” And amongst the first lot I looked at there was a big wooden crate, about this, about that high, you know, heavy. I looked at it and I said, “What on earth do you think is in there?” And he said, “I understand it’s a giant valve from the radio station that talked to the R101”. I said, “Do you think you could open it up and send me a photo so I can put it in our magazine?” It’s something new, you know, it’s all Airship history, ‘cause there was a tower at Cardington behind the headquarters building, you can see it on some films, which they knocked down because the Fire Service said it wasn’t safe [inaudible]. That light had only been there since 1928 [Laughter] It’s easy to criticise isn’t it.
[00:04:28]
So what do you think it was like to fly inside the great airships? What was that like?
Well, I should say it was very comfortable, particularly the German ones, and the American ones, the bigger ones. We know there were tragedies but, you know, there’s tragedies to do with everything. Before your time and mine, Tay Bridge disaster and everything else that goes wrong in the world. Then the 100 came down from Howden and then it went off to Canada as we all know, and was quite reasonably successful, did have a blip across the way occasionally. But I knew the coxswain’s son, he’s one of our members. And there’s about five, I think there’s five, there were five of their crew working in the shed, they’d come back and they worked for RAE, you know, as riggers and whatever on balloons. And they’re all gone now.
So you must have some theories about why the R101 crashed?
But it should never have gone, and that was proven by the fact that before they’d even got to the Channel it was blowing a bloody gale and that hadn’t been forecast. You know, if you’re into the people who were on it, their opinions, what happened, they were on it and still alive some of them were - It’s sad.
What did it feel like to be inside that space?
Wonderful [Laughter]. Love it, I could live there. No, I’m afraid I, yeah I just loved the Shed, I miss it. When you think you’ve somewhere for, how many years? God, from 1950’s . . . I first came back to Cardington in the Airforce and we were in Two Shed and RAE were in there as well, that’s the Royal Aircraft Establishment, ‘cause they had their own balloon division in there. And One Shed was a storage area at that time. And I just loved it: cold, damp, miserable, lovely in the summer.
[00:06:55]
It’s a strange subject, you know, you could talk about it for all day
Number One Shed was built by Main Brothers in 1916 and then later on it was lengthened and enlarged to allow for the ships as they are now. And there’s also talk about extending it again, but umm . . . Number Two Shed was a Royal Naval Airbase at - in Norfolk, Pulham, and they dismantled it, brought it here and then enlarged it to the, almost to the same size as the one that’s there. So you’ve got as how you got your twin sheds. It had its own, there was a gas plant here of course. Yeah, they produced gas through the war. All in cylinders, went all around the world. They were wonderful sheds, lovely.
This last one, Number One Shed’s just been done up as you probably know. You’re looking at, I think they’re quoting ten million. But they took the metal of the whole of the shed back to base, and there were three or four coats of these undercoats, special stuffs, and then it’s all painted and . . . All reclad, the whole building was reclad and it cost a fortune.
[00:08:23]
So what’s the fabric of the building made of?
It’s just corrugated. Yeah, they reclad it all and they couldn’t reclad it as they should have done, by the original, because somebody had pinched the press for that particular scale and thrown it away, you know, over the years. Just before they’d finished cladding it they apparently, they had a message from English Heritage said, “We think you ought to have the floor done.” So under the floor are like as the gas mains which go right through the shed and into the next shed and then off and out to the mooring mast site, and all the electrics, you know, and anything that you need, water as were underground.
[??] Adventurer [Laughter] Oh yeah they laugh at me because I say I do this and do that, you know. Well, like I said to you, “Well been all over the roof” [Laughter]. We used to go up on the roof, you do don’t you because it’s there. Get up in the roof, people won’t go up it. There’s people down there working, they won’t go up in the roof. [Laughter] We used to go on the roof! And the more over the wall [?] we’d go to work, both sheds because we worked in the roof quite a lot. We used to drop stuff, you know, electrically controlled stuff, from the roof to be filmed. They had lights and that, I think I’m right, it’s a long while back, but I believe there were fans in the roof, extractor fans, as well, I seem to remember.
Did people ever climb on the top of an airship when it was flying?
Oh yeah, yeah when it was flying, yeah it was possible, always had been. Yeah even in the early days they could walk along the top of ships, do this and the other. I’ve got a picture of a band on top of one of the ships, a local band. [Laughter]
And that was for real?
Yeah, it was for real, yeah.
[00:10:26]
When it was flying?
No, I think it’s in the shed actually but I can’t remember now. Looking at it again, I can’t put my hand on the picture just like that because you have to look through, you know. But, you know, as I say, you’re welcome to look at anything that’s here. Thumb your way through, take you days.
Umm yeah the first Shed, which was built by Main Bros, had doors at either end and it had a, what’s it called? A walk-around capstan, you know, gang of blokes walking around with it, and then they electrified it eventually and then when the doors were upgraded it was all electric. But we’ve opened it with lorries and opened it with all sorts of things when they’ve been broken down. No great problem at all. Wonderful. Love ‘em.
[Pause] Oh yeah we did have a door on the way on Two Shed one year. [Laughter] a 70knot wind came over the top of the rise, of the door. For some reason the door hadn’t been secured. We won’t go into that either [laughter]. Usual, man error. It was a fright, think I saw it actually running, was over the next site talking and looked out that window and saw door moving. And you could see it moving. Like when you went out to wind it yourself, you know, it took quarter of an hour to open.
How much did those doors weigh?
470 tons. The inside measurement to the underneath of the main roof girders a 156 feet, give or take a half inch.
Yeah there’s so much history to everything in the world isn’t there. And if you’ve got somebody who’s involved in them, they can tell a tale, you know, so it goes on.
I can tell a tale.
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