The Manor Open Day on September 15th deserves a special mention. It was
jointly organised by Bawdsey Radar Group and Bawdsey Village Hall and
Recreation Committee at the invitation of Mr and Mrs Toettcher, owner’s of
Bawdsey Manor. Particular thanks are due though to Peter Wain who was
the inspiration behind the Open Day. His enthusiasm sustained everyone
through all the ensuing hard work and culminated in a great success.

As well as opening the Block we have been active in the wider community.
The Group has had a presence at the opening of Bentwaters Cold war
Museum, Bawdsey Fete, Debach Airfield Open Day, Bawdsey Flower
Festival, Rock Barracks Open Day, Kirton’s Living History Day and the
Maritime Woodbridge Weekend. We have gone out and given talks to
Crowfied WI, Felixstowe Morning WI, Bawdsey School, East Bergholt British
Legion, Haven Ports Yacht Club, East Suffolk U3A and others. Phil Judkins,
who regularly lectures on radar throughout the UK, has been giving a series of
three talks at Bawdsey Manor on ‘Bawdsey – the Untold Story; Power
Struggles and Personality Clashes behind Radar’. He has agreed to give
another talk in the spring at a venue in Ipswich.

Work has nearly been completed on the Oral History project, ‘Shout and
Whisper’. This has been very rewarding activity to be involved in. One of the
participants, Hilda Pearson, very sadly died earlier this year. We were very
touched when the family wrote to us saying it was to be requested that
instead of sending flowers to the funeral mourners might like to make
bequests to one of two charities, one of which was Bawdsey Radar Group.
Thanks are due to David Heath for the enormous amount of work he has and
continues to put in to ‘Shout and Whisper’.

Of course on top of all these activities we have had our normal committee
meetings. We have been most fortunate in the course of the year to acquire
three new committee members Mark Fisher, John Brooking and Dee
McCleavy. John has taken on the role of Treasurer and already I can’t think
how we ever managed without him. Mark has produced a short CD called
‘Radar Traces’ which is a very imaginative remix of parts of the ‘Shout and
Whisper’ interviews with sound and music. Dee has only just joined the
committee but has been an active volunteer for the last couple of years. I
would like to thank all the members of the committee for the tremendous effort
they put in. They continue to be wonderful group to work with. I would like to
give a special thank you to Eileen, our secretary, who has been very ill in the
course of the year. She has continued throughout to work extremely hard for
the Group and it is wonderful to have her here today.

We have a small group of volunteers who help us out. This small group grew
to a veritable army for the Manor Open Day. It was a particularly good
experience working with the people of Bawdsey village. Without the
enthusiasm and support of these volunteers we would never be able to
accomplish as much as we do. I would like to make a special mention of the
Woodbridge Air Cadets who continue to give us their invaluable assistance
but a big thank you to everyone who has helped in the course of last year.

Our future plans are now under serious consideration. The Options Appraisal
carried out for us by The Morton Partnership with financial support from the
Architectural Heritage Fund has almost been completed. It has provided an
excellent opportunity for us to review what we have been doing and give a
focus to what the future of Bawdsey Radar Group and the Transmitter Block
might be.

Currently we are involved in creating the Bawdsey Radar Trust. This will be a
limited company and a registered charity and will eventually take over from
the Bawdsey Radar Group. This is being done with the advice and guidance
of the Architectural Heritage Fund.

These are very exciting times for the Bawdsey Radar Group. We entered this
year wondering whether the interest that we had been seeing in what we were
doing would begin to tail off. This proved not to be the case. In spite of some
frightful weather we have had more visitors to the Transmitter Block this
summer than last. We are getting more requests for speakers and are indeed
taking bookings for the autumn next year. We are regularly asked when will
the Block be open and are actively having to discourage winter visitors. We
were invited to organise the Open Day at the manor and are regularly asked
when the next one will be! Our problem is how we are going to find the time
and the people to do all that we would like to do but these problems are
challenges we can meet. We are the custodians of a small but very special
and exciting part of our heritage and we intend to continue to play our part in
preserving it.

Mary Wain

Chair

Oral History Report 2007 - click here