27th June 2015 Pre-War Prescott is THREE weeks today! Entries are now arriving thick and fast and yesterday’s entries included two Alvises, a Riley Lynx, an Austin 7 and a spectating MGA and MGB GT. (We actually have at least SIX MGA’s booked in as spectating cars so far. Should make a nice lineup in the Orchard.) All tickets, final instructions, etc. for everyone who has entered so far are on there way by FedEx to the UK, so these latest entrants have been individually ticketed and posted – so will probably get their tickets before everyone else! Actually, the tickets this year are not really tickets – you will see when you get them …
We have a super entry of 36 cars for the Sunday Navigation Rally and Scenic Tour, and we’re limiting the number to 40, so we have just FOUR spare entries available at this point. So if you would like to book for the weekend, or just Sunday, get in touch immediately! One of the reasons we are limiting numbers to 40 for Sunday is that we are planning a rather unique and special activity at Stanway House at the conclusion of the day. Apart from viewing the magnificent 300 foot gravity fountain in action and all the usual awards, all entrants in the navigation Rally AND the Scenic Tour will be competing this year for a gorgeous 1:48 scale pewter presentation model Spitfire, among other prizes.
Tickets for the evening Battle of Britain Victory Party are also going fast (129 allocated so far), so we expect a super crowd in the evening to watch the Hawker Hurricane display. The Hurricane ground crew have my mobile number and will call the moment R4118 is wheels up out of Fairford – about ten minutes flying time from Prescott. And a BIG thank you to all who have donated so far towards the cost of bringing the Hurricane to Prescott. The cost is around 1,800 pounds, so we have set ourselves a target of 2,400 pounds to raise, of which a quarter will go directly to the RAF Charitable Trust as a thank you for making the complex arrangements to get the aircraft out of Fairford at the conclusion of the International Air Tattoo. To date, we have received pledges and payments totaling 1,590 pounds, so we have just 810 pounds to go. We have had 13 donations of 100 pounds or more, so there are currently 13 individuals entered in the Grand Draw which will take place on Saturday night. The winner of the draw will go home with the superb 1:48 scale pewter model of R4118 which has been specially built by Diversified Systems for us. And there will be a number of very nice runner-up prizes as well. Please consider helping out at any level if you can. And of course everyone entered in the draw will be receiving a personally autographed copy of either Peter Vacher’s book relating the restoration of R4118 or Hurricane pilot Will Clark’s wartime memoirs.
The first draft of the Marshaling Plan has been distributed to all those who have generously offered an hour or two of their time to help out, feedback is being processed, and a second draft will go out in the next few days. We have had a splendid THIRTY entrants who have volunteered to help out this year, which means that we have been able to reduce most of the time slots from two hours to sixty minutes.
Jayne and I travel to London from Seattle two weeks today, arriving Sunday morning 12th July. We’re going to spend a couple of days in Bath, then head up to Cirencester on Wednesday to stay with old friends at our traditional Prescott Base Camp. We will then be checking out the Sunday rally route on Thursday which will free us up on Friday to spend the day preparing Prescott for the next day. This will include laying out the Paddock and decking out the Clubhouse in Battle of Britain order. Then we’ll be around to greet some of the Friday evening campers (one of my favourite times of the weekend) as they arrive and then escort them to The Shutters in Gotherington at opening time!