Craft Chat & Coffee (CCC), based in Bowerhill are taking part in a project to create a piece of textile art to celebrate Wiltshire hosting the Armed Forces Weekend on the 28th 29th and 30th June.
Jenny Butcher from the group says, “We were contacted in February by Oliver Phipps, Chippenham community engagement officer to see if we would like to take part.
“The piece will be made up of 18 portrait A3 sections each made by a different community areas of Wiltshire, which will be then joined together to create one large celebratory piece of work. The finished piece is to be displayed as a legacy in a number of places such as libraries, museums, hubs and campuses throughout Wiltshire. Work was needed to be started as soon as possible and completed by the first week in May.
“So as CCC meets fortnightly in Bowerhill village hall which is sited on the old RAF Melksham base and I myself have lived on Bowerhill for 44 years, we felt it was important that this subject was celebrated in textile art.
“So myself and Liz Norris designed and stitched the piece, with technical help from Liz’s husband, Roy, with computer wizardry where needed, with colour and photographs.
“The artistic drawing on material by myself of the aircraft hangers which are still in existence and are now used by industry was drawn from a old photo of RAF Melksham. The grassed area and hedges still exist and it was the original cricket/sports ground used by the base, but now has been renamed the Queen Elizabeth Jubilee Playing Fields.
“The tiny red beads (poppies) represent those personnel that died during the base existence of 1940 to 1965.
“The housing estate has now been built on half of the site and the rest is now industrial and the roads were named after planes, pilots and air bases, so Liz went round the site with her camera and took the photographs.
“RAF Melksham was a large base, which at one point in time housed over 10,000 personnel and the official title of the station was No 12 School of Technical Training. Although many people, including my husband, remember seeing aircraft on display at the annual open days after the Second World War, it was never an operational flying base as it had no runway. The aircraft were used for training purposes for ground crew and technicians and were transported to and from the base in dismantled form.
“RAF Melksham also housed No 10 School of Recruit Training, which averaged an intake of 100 a week of mainly National Servicemen until its final intake arrived in June 1953.”
