All Roads lead to Duxford

摘要

The single most important factor in the establishment of what is now IWM Duxford: a quirk of geographical fate. That might seem a strange statement, but not so. Had the Imperial War Museums former deputy director-general Dr Christopher Roads not grown up and lived nearby, the famous RAF fighter station might simply have gone to wrack and ruin, far from being developed into one of the world's centres of aviation heritage. Christopher had joined the IWM staff in 1962, initially as the keeper of records. Soon he was promoted to become deputy to director-general Dr Noble Frankland, a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross during his wartime service with Bomber Command. By the time Roads left in 1979, the IWM had been transformed. From one rather down-at-heel branch in Lambeth, South London, it now had three vibrant museums - none more so than Duxford, where the 1970s proved to be a formative and very exciting time.