W3644

With the car having the self opening sun roof fixed in Preston today it was a trip over to St Annes to visit family and mooch along the beach to a cafe.

The weather was amazing - the beach was covered in families and the donkeys were doing a brisk day - it was the sort of weather that quite possibly led to the very invention of ice cream.

Arriving from the beach at Fairhaven Lake it was good to see a lot of tidying up of the area has been done - and the spectacular memorial to the brave RAF Fighter, Bomber & Coastal Command crew (& especially the Spitfire pilots) of WWII now has surroundings to match.
For the (fair few I'd suspect) of you who are unfamiliar with this - it is a life size replica of a Spitfire aircraft bought by the people of Lytham St Annes for the sum of £6,500 (which in turn was matched by the Air Ministry), as was the tradition with these 'presentation aircraft' it was named the Lytham St Annes, sadly it was shot down over the sea with the loss of its pilot . The memorial was erected in 2012 and I vividly remember it was one of the few times I ever saw my Grandfather, who served in the RAF in WWII, wear his medals. It cost £80,000.