After 617 Squadron’s Dambusters raid in 1943, the Pettwood Hotel, Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire, became the squadron’s new Officers’ Mess when they moved to RAF Woodhall Spa in 1944. Now a luxury country hotel, it was the recent location for a fund-raising talk about Spitfire pilot and poet John Gillespie Magee. The event was organised by the John Gillespie Magee Jr. Foundation, which aims to create a memorial to the pilot in Wellingore, Lincolnshire, from where Magee flew in 1941.

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I attended the March 2020 talk and met a roomful of Magee enthusiasts, including Squadron Leader Mark Discombe, who leads the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, (www.raf.mod.uk/display-teams/battle-of-britain-memorial-flight) based at RAF Coningsby, Lincolnshire. He’s in charge of six Spitfires, two Hurricanes, a Lancaster and a Dakota, and he gave a talk on flying vintage warbirds in the 21st century. There was also an address by Simon Devenish of the John Gillespie Magee Jr. Foundation (www.mageejrfoundation.uk/), and he introduced the audience to the bust and full-figure model of Magee upon which a full-size statue is to be based and eventually displayed outside the village of Wellingore, south of Lincoln.

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The Pettwood Hotel (www.petwood.co.uk) contains a treasure trove of memorabilia dedicated to The Dambusters, and its Squadron Bar contains photos, original artefacts and autographs of World War 2 aircrew.

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