Control Tower at Caernarfon Airfield.
by bwlchmawr
More beautiful and soft than any moth
With burring furred antennae feeling its huge path
Through dusk, the air-liner with shut-off engines
Glides over suburbs and the sleeves set trailing tall
To point the wind. Gently, broadly, she falls,
Scarcely disturbing charted currents of air.
Lulled by descent, the travellers across sea
And across feminine land indulging its easy limbs
In miles of softness, now let their eyes trained by watching
Penetrate through dusk the outskirts of this town
Here where industry shows a fraying edge.
Here they may see what is being done.
Beyond the winking masthead light
And the landing-ground, they observe the outposts
Of work: chimneys like lank black fingers
Or figures frightening and mad: and squat buildings
With their strange air behind trees, like women's faces
Shattered by grief. Here where few houses
Moan with faint light behind their blinds,
They remark the unhomely sense of complaint, like a dog
Shut out and shivering at the foreign moon.
In the last sweep of love, they pass over fields
Behind the aerodrome, where boys play all day
Hacking dead grass: whose cries, like wild birds
Settle upon the nearest roofs
But soon are hid under the loud city.
Then, as they land, they hear the tolling bell
Reaching across the landscape of hysteria,
To where larger than all the charcoaled batteries
And imaged towers against that dying sky,
Religion stands, the church blocking the sun.
Stephen Spender
The airfield was built in 1941 as RAF Llandwrong. Lysanders and Avro Ansons operated from there and due to its position, mountain rescue and air/sea rescue aircraft have been based there. It is still operational and is, in fact, being renovated as Bristow take over rescue work from the RAF.
Andrew
"These places mean something and it's the job of a photographer to figure-out what the hell it is."
Robert Adams
"The camera doesn't make a bit of difference. All of them can record what you are seeing. But, you have to SEE."
Ernst Hass
My website: http://www.ephotozine.com/user/bwlchmawr-199050 http://s927.photobucket.com/home/ADC3440/index
https://www.flickr.com/photos/78898196@N05
It reminds me of an old airport close to lake Trasimeno...and your pp enhaces my impression. PS Not only is close to...but it is closed too(ahahaha)..Sometimes(well seldom I should say) it has been used for reenactment of WW2...during WW2 was used also to test new war-planes as in that area there was an important factory of those flying weapons....In 1943 or 1944 (I don't remember) airport and factory were bombed and falled silence by RAF. This is History...
PS "Fallen" not falled!!! Sorry
It is clear you are not just a story teller with a camera but someone who knows how to paint with words and images in such a way it evokes and resurrects past ambience and past eras.
Great to see these images
Hi Andrew,
It is clear you are not just a story teller with a camera but someone who knows how to paint with words and images in such a way it evokes and resurrects past ambience and past eras.
Great to see these images
Thanks Daroni,
I do like old stuff and old places.
This airfield reminded me of Spender's poem, written in the Thirties.
Andrew
"These places mean something and it's the job of a photographer to figure-out what the hell it is."
Robert Adams
"The camera doesn't make a bit of difference. All of them can record what you are seeing. But, you have to SEE."
Ernst Hass
My website: http://www.ephotozine.com/user/bwlchmawr-199050 http://s927.photobucket.com/home/ADC3440/index
https://www.flickr.com/photos/78898196@N05
Photography is not a sport. It has no rules. Everything must be dared and tried! (Bill Brandt)
PPG
David
Great period feel to it
I agree you can almost hear the tannoy
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31 posts
15 years
Firenze-Italia