Great Driffield 1913
GREAT DRIFFIELD see also GREAT DRIFFIELD 1929
GREAT DRIFFIELD 1913: Temporary Landing Ground (Aka DRIFFIELD, as the town is now more commonly known)
Operated by: Mr Harold Blackburn (Note: Although he was flying a machine built by Robert Blackburn and his company, they were not related).
Location: Just S of the A166 Bridlington Road, just E of Great Driffield town centre. Roughly 27nm ENE of York city centre
Period of operation: 29th October to the 16th November 1913
A MICHAEL T HOLDER GALLERY
We have Mike Holder, a great friend of this 'Guide', to thank for both identifying and researching this location and providing the following items. Mr Blackburn did not intend to stay here this long, but on arriving on the 29th October, had, as the chaps in the RAF may well have said in a later era.....a wizard prang.
The picture of Blackburn flying is from the Driffield Facebook.
This first article was published in the Hull Daily News on the 29th October 1913.
The first picture is from the Driffield Facebook. The excerpt is from Yorkshire Aircraft. As we now know, it was repaired locally, at the Fire Station.
LOCAL FEATURES IN PICTURES
The Poor Law Institution, or workhouse, was built in 1866. The Google Street View shows the cottage seen in at least one of the pictures taken at the time.
SOME MORE ITEMS
The photo was published in the Hull Daily News on the 1st November 1913. Article Two was also published in the Hull Daily News, but later, on the 5th November 1913.
The Article Three was published in the Driffield Times on the 15th November 1913. The photo and Article Four were also published on the 15th November in the Hull Daily News.
AND LASTLY
The group photo is from the Driffield Facebook. The local area view and area view are from my Google Earth © derived facebook.
NOTES: I find it rather interesting reading the accounts above, especially regarding high winds in the autumn of 1913. When Austin (Aussie) J Brown and I eventually got the go ahead in the autumn of 1992 to produce two books flying around British airports for Ian Allan publishers, we had similar problems. Basically, the further north we flew, as often as not we encountered very strong winds. As stated elsewhere in this 'Guide' nothing much has changed regarding our weather in the UK for at least the last hundred years. Which of course is not to deny that the planet is warming up. Of course it is, we have had around 11,000 years notice of this trend going on since the last ice age. Just how much human acitivity has affected this is highly debatable and opinions seem to be divided in the scientific world.
Seems to me, looking at the long term history, that we humans have a far too high opinion of ourselves, thinking that we can halt global warming. What nonsense. We can tinker around at the edges, perhaps slow it down a bit (?), but if nature has decided that the world will go on warming up, as it has done, we are in for a very rough ride.
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