Making Tracks

Picture the scene. It is WWII, you are surrounded by noise, mud and soldiers, members of REME (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers), and are training in the recovery of AFVs (Armoured Fighting Vehicles, including tanks). Every now and then you come across a bone or some rubbish, a reminder of gravel-digging in the late 1800s and use as a municipal rubbish dump from the 1920s (which continued until the 1960s).  Rumour has it that you are making your own contribution by bulldozing unsalvageable equipment into some of the surrounding bogs and old gravel pits (another relict of this historic site). Behind you is a concrete ramp built into the hill used to test steel ropes or hawsers by winching trucks filled with iron ingots up the hill  by a cable pulley system driven by a powerful stationary engine at the top firmly secured in more concrete supports.  Maybe things will be different someday in the future.

Today the heath is a tranquil nature reserve, an area of endangered lowland heath. The soldiers have been replaced by Sunday afternoon walkers and the loudest noise around is them calling or calming their dogs, excited to roaming free, or the sudden trill of a bird.  Remnants of past times can still be found, such as the concrete structures and gently rusting tank tracks dug up from the surrounding area,. However, I was sorry to see that the area had been "tidied up" and a lot of the tracks removed - a sign of our 'Elf and Safety times no doubt.