11:46am Wednesday 9th August 2006
By Bob Jolliffe
A WAR-TIME air control tower at Ibsley which featured in the film The First of the Few could be refurbished as a lasting memorial to the men who flew from there.
The dilapidated control tower at RAF Ibsley now stands beside a flooded worked-out gravel pit in what was once part of the airfield between Moyles Court and Mockbeggar.
Members of the RAF Ibsley Historical Group have started a feasibility study paid for by a £10,000 grant from the gravel company Hanson Concrete Trust.
The first stage of the study, being led by group member Mike Halpin, is for surveyors to ensure the two-storey concrete tower is structurally sound.
A report will be presented to the Hanson trustees in September.
If all is well, the study will move to its next three phases: the preparation of a more detailed specification and pricing for the refurbishment, how it will be accessed and used, and the setting up of a fund-raising trust.
The group, with the backing of Bournemouth and West Hampshire Water Company, which owns the lake, is also applying to English Heritage to have the building listed.
The film The First of the Few, based on the life of Southampton-based Spitfire designer R J Mitchell, was made at RAF Ibsley when it was operational.
Producer and director Leslie Howard and actors David Niven and Rosamund John were based at the airfield at the same time as leading flying aces from key Battle of Britain squadrons 501 and 118 were there, re-enacting scenes from the summer of 1940, in between operational sorties.
RAF Ibsley Historical Group secretary Vera Smith said: "We are very grateful to the Hanson Concrete Trustees for their generous grant which has broken the vicious circle we have found ourselves in over the last 10 years trying to move this project forward."
She also thanked the water company for its co-operation.
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