Last year my company Funder Films Community Interest Company ran a heritage lottery project entitled Wye Chilham Chartham: Scene from the Train 1914-18. As part of the project we set out to track down the diary of someone called Corporal Gordon Tucker who was a mechanic at Beaulieu, Hounslow and Wye Aerodromes between 1916 and 1919.
It proved relatively easy to track down the diary – which is in the possession of his son Stuart Tucker who lives in Ashtead in Surrey. You can see here that the diary itself, which is in four volumes, is very unusual – a pocket diary for a very small pocket!
We digitised the diary and another son, Michael, who lives in Australia, has now transcribed it in full. Given that the collection also includes a large number of photographs, two albums with labelled pictures, over 100 negatives of photos that haven’t been printed, Tucker’s original uniform, a full size propeller from a Be52e aeroplane, and the camera that he took the pictures with. The collection of Corporal Gordon Tucker will be on display at East Boldre from Friday 26th July to Sunday 28th July you can find out more here: Forest Flying Exhibition – East Boldre
Following the exhibition we are creating an more in depth New Forest Knowledge page on the life of Corporal Gordon Tucker with his diary transcriptions and other materials that can be found here: Memories of the Royal Flying Corps years and early days of the Royal Air Force – Corporal Gordon Tucker
If you have any more details, documents or information about the aerodrome/airfield do add a comment, post a new article or get in touch. We are constantly adding to our main article: East Boldre Airfield Overview