E-motion

Having done some shopping in Staines I stopped off at Runnymede on the way back home to take the camera for a bit of a walk. For a change I opted for a longer walk up Cooper's Hill to the Commonwealth Air Forces War Memorial where over 20,000 men and women from the air forces of the British Empire with no known grave are commemorated. 

I find this memorial quite poignant and despite visiting many times always seem to learn something new. Today's insight was that Amy Johnson, the first female pilot to fly alone to Australia in the 1930s, is commemorated here. She volunteered for the Air Transport Auxiliary in WWII and was lost on 5th January 1941 when her aircraft ran out of fuel and she had to parachute into the freezing Thames near Herne Bay.


It also brings to mind my own link to the RAF, Flying Officer Basil Wykes (1915-1942) who was killed while operating as a night flying training officer. He was married to one of my mother's aunts and, unlike the souls commemorated here, was buried with due ceremony near his home town. They had only been married for five years.

When the memorial was opened on 17th October 1953 by the late HRH Queen Elizabeth II, she included in her speech the prophetic insight Alexander Pope wrote about Cooper's Hill which echoes down the years to today:
On Cooper's Hill eternal wreaths shall grow
While lasts the mountain, or while Thames shall flow.