Hungerford Arcade is buzzing with activity (allowing for social distancing), getting ready for our grand re-opening on Monday, 15th June at 9.15 a.m. All the safety measures for customers and staff were put in place last month as we thought that we could re-open on 1st June.
Following the new Government guidelines, we have an extra two weeks of lockdown so Arcade co-owner, Adrian Gilmour decided to crack on with the square and gave it a thorough clean and fresh coat of paint. We had a Lysander Aircraft hanging from the beam which had to come down and you will see from the video below, Adrian couldn’t resist giving us a demo of how it would look when it was flying.
The Lysander was very slow but really good on landing and take off from very short, rough fields. It was used by the Special Operartions Exective to insert agents into France and the Netherlands. It was not even armed, but relied on flying at night to avoid being detected. Landing in a field you had never seen before, in the dark, never knowing if an ambush had been set up took nerves of steel. If you are looking for the unsung hero pilots, they flew these aircraft.
