OHA Outing 2006
June 10th was a perfect English Summers day, sunny and hot. Our coach picked up at 7am to ensure an early arrival at The Churchill War Cabinet rooms at Whitehall at 9.40am. London was buzzing with the second rehearsal for The Trooping of the Colour going on in Horseguards Parade just by the entrance to The Churchill rooms. We did get a brief glimpse of the action as we came out of the rooms at around midday.
There was much to see in the war cabinet rooms with many items of Churchill memorabilia and a good feel of where the great man lead the fight against Germany during World War 2 but undoubtedly the highlight of the tour is the visual display table installed by Electrosonic last year which depicts Churchill's life from birth to death and highlights all the most important dates of his lifetime. It is ingeniusely constructed so that all dates of note can be highlighted and by touching the screen a record of what happened on a particular day come up on the desk screen. The exciting part however is to know particular dates in history, and when they are requested weird and wonderful things happen on the whole screen. I was fortunate to have pre knowledge of some of the dates as the concept was developed and installed by my son-in-law who is sales manager for Electrosonic. 14th April 1912 produces a watery affect on the whole table surface not surprising as The Titanic sank on that day. August 6th 1945, the day of the Hiroshima atomic bomb blanks out the screen with blinding white light leading to a boom that apparently was so realistic when it was first installed that it had to be modified and reduced as people were really frightened by the noise of the explosion when they were not aware what was going on.
The Dam Busters raid on 18th May 1943 and The Battle of Britain in 1940 are impressive but Armistice Day 11th November 1918 has to be the most dramatic with the whole screen covered in Poppies. There are other highlight days which you can search for but you could play with the whole display for hours and other people want to have a go. It all left me feeling very proud of my son-in-law!
Back to the coach at midday and sandwiches while we were taken to The BBC TV Centre at Shepherds Bush where we split into 3 groups and had conducted tours. All most interesting but would have been more so had it not been a Saturday afternoon when not much was going on except coverage of Englands first World Cup match against Uraguay. There were many screens showing the match so it was possible to keep up with the score, not that it was a great match but we did win 1 - 0 and I did see that goal live by delaying by a screen while Beckham took that free kick.
Back to the coach and on to Il Posto Ristorante Italiano at Victoria for a superb Italian meal which everyone seemed to really enjoy, and home by 8.30.
From the feedback everyone seemed to agree that it has been another most enjoyable day and an excellent outing.
The O.H.A. has a coach outing each year which is in much demand but if you wish to be included in future and live in East Kent and are accessible to boarding the coach from Folkestone then please contact me on 01303 251403 and I will add your name to the list to be included.
