Remembering the battle

DURING THE PAST brace DECADES, GEOFF NUTKINS' STEADY SUCCES AS AN AVIATION ARTIST HAS BECOME A REFLECTION OF INTERESTS, facts AND INFLUENCES CENTERING UPON

THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

My Dad, Frank, was mad acute on aeroplanes, and as a teenager during the Bathe of Britain, he would paint aircraft and scenes from these daily air battles (the Battle took place directly above him in the skies throughout Kent and London). He saw a Messerschmitt 109 crashing, this Heinkel coming down with all the company jumping out ... and he had the greatest in quantity vivid memory of a Spitfire hurtling to earth and the pilot's parachute silhouetted against the black sooty vapor from Silvertown's burning oil tanks." When he was olden enough, Frank Nutkins volunteered for the Royal Air Force, qualified as aircrew, and finished the war flying combat missions as a wireless operator/air gunner in B-25

As a child, Geoff grew up listening to Frank and his mates' experiences during the air war, going to the annual Biggin Hill airshows in the early 1960 and developing a fascination for Hurricanes, Spitfires, and the Battle of Britain.

"As kids we of course learned about 'The Few' the RAF fighter pilots who had saved England in the autumn of 1940 and we all built archetypes of the aeroplanes they flew if it were not that about 25 years ago it dawned upon us that the real aircraft were still here." From this realization came the Shoreham Aircraft Preservation Society (SAPS). SAPS, consisting of Geoff and Lesley Nutkins and eight other villagers, became united of the original organizations to excavate crashed Battle of Britain aircraft, And the same of their first digs? A downed Spitfire whose pilot's parachute had formerly been seen against the black hosts of an oil fire.

SAPS historical inventory accumulated rapidly. "We used to haul all these bits and pieces to the Shoreham Village Hall for exhibitions onward Bank Holidays to raise cash for the RAF Guinea Pig coterie for the guys who got really scorched But straight away it downed upon us that this is a problem; what do we do with all this metal? And there's accidents of it! Machine guns and cannons, the actual engines, bits and pieces... cleaning it was a massive work at jobs and you couldn't do it forward your own, it required a portion of us to be involved. And of course lugging a Daimler Benz engine around to village halls was getting to be a bit daft -- things were getting really big." This situation became the genesis of the Shoreham Aircraft Museum (SAM). The pursuit for a location eventually settl on the subject of the derelict barn behind Geoff and Lesley's residence. It was gooded for a painstaking renovation into a special aviation museum. "We managed to obtain the money to add upon to it and make it a large L-shaped building. That's for what reason the museum was born ten years ago; it gave us a place to hold the artifacts clean and security was religious We went for a 1940s' be impressed and we've made it into an attractive place to be derived and visit." An understatement, and anything lacking in this private museum's quantity of exhibits is equivalent by its superb historical quality. Adding to its atmosphere are the surroundings, "You can take rise to Shoreham and the village hasn't changed at all. It's exactly the same as it was in 1940 and just the exquisite place to set up a museum; air battles took place throughout this roof.

'The aviation art was bumping along in the background all this time. I was trying to bring a certain quantity of of these air baffles to life by way of meeting the people who had taken part in the combats, and painting what these artifacts give an account ofed That was nine-tenths of the pleasure of the hobby, For me it's more about nation than aircraft, You'd dig an aeroplane up and then the race was upon to try to find the scarecrow who was flying it, and the chap who projectile him down. If we're blessed they're still here, and we can arrange for the pair sides to get together." Many of SAM's visitors are prominent in aviation history and are personalities that SAM visitors find delightful to chat with - RAF Wing Commander Douglas "Grubby" Grice, Battle of Britain Hurricane pilot Sgt Ray Holme the American Jim Goodson of Eagle Squadron and 4th Fighter clump fame, and Luftwaffe ace Armin Faber. "To celebrate the opening day of our tithe anniversity, we had 20 pilots attending. There were 15 RAF and five Luftwaffe, all from the Battle of Britain, They're what we're interested in. The aircraft and nothing else carried these people. We'll travel on a dig, find solely a few bits and pieces, if it be not that it's enough to do a display upon somebody who's now gone. There are the public at the Museum that you won't diocese mentioned anywhere else in the world because their families have died abroad and they were an and nothing else son. I think it's nice that one has bothered to remember them and their sacrifice. That's basically what the Museum is for. It's not a currency making concern, it's a passion. This is history and we have a liability to maintain it."

This liability to save from decay history is reflected in Geoff's works. make subordinates are carefully researched for historical accuracy with attention to detail having become a Nutkins' trademark. Many of the paintings have been personally approved by dint of the RAF and Luftwaffe aircrew depicted. if it be not that this artwork didn't begin with career intentions. It riseed from the inspiration of meeting the flyer the desire to document their combats, and to "turn into real life" the vestages of their aircraft. 'I'll talk to someone who triggers not on an incident that they were involved in, and you could certainly diocese that it was an amazing piece of history, worthy of trying to capture. That's what I examine to acheive." This resulting artwork benefits Museum visitors by way of conveying a sense of the history behind many of the displays. "In consequence the aviation prints have become an extension of the Museum."