I agree with the other poster that Bedlam is where the IWM should be sited, even British bureacracy has its characteristic sense of humour.

I suspect that the childrens’ paintings are something to do with gun crime - in London we have had a spate of shootings of teenagers, including an 18 yr old neighbour of mine. Various initiatives are trying to alert schoolchildren to the problems of guns.

Many thanks Graham Bagwell

You get double “Spotto!” points for that! The IWM’s blurb says that it ‘was apparently being lowered unmanned when the winch went out of control’. I’m not sure why they’d want to lower it unmanned though …

Chris:

I’m way ahead of you, Chris — well, a day ahead, anyway! I used the IWM reading rooms yesterday and since they close at 5pm but the museum itself is open until 6, used the extra hour to look at the Falklands and some of the art. I actually didn’t notice the WWI art gallery though, until just about closing time, but I’ll be back there on Tuesday so can have a look then. The same situation obtains with the RAF Museum and reading rooms also, so at least I got to see the fighters.

How Brett is that reference?

If you can find the time - even if you’re just nipping out for a break from your research - check out the paintings. Especially ‘Gassed’, though right now you need to walk through the first room of the Falklands exhibit to get to it. Nevinson’s _A Taube_ is also on show in that room, so it’s relevant.

I have a feeling it was actually occuppied when the Germans dropped it by mistake.

They had a foul reputation. Dangling 5000 feet under the gondolas, connected only by wires and a microphone, they tended to swing back and forth in a huge arc as the inhabitant threw up all over himself. That was probably better than balancing on the engine chipping frozen oil off the uncovered sump with a chisel and feeding it back into the top.

I’m often curious as to how such-and-such an item got into a museum’s collection, so thanks for filling me in on one of them :)

Jakob:

Well, presumably I’ll get to see the IWM reading room when I’m there as a legitimate historical researcher :D Being an historian has its privileges. Very few, admittedly …

Fascinating about the mustard gas detector on the wing. I think you’re right that it would have been to see if the airfield was contaminated. There wasn’t a lot of pre-war attention given to the idea of using gas against aircraft — though having said that I came across an example today (’It would be much simpler to surround attacking air-planes with enormous clouds of gas than to score a direct hit on each one’, F. N. Pickett, Don’t Be Afraid of Poison Gas , 1934) — and anyway, mustard wouldn’t be used for that as it’s too heavy.

Alan:

Well, it beats the tearoom at Colindale!