Outer Gallery

Cap badge, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers

Brass cap badge (the King's Crown Shield) of REME, the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. Oval in shape, with a crown at the top, a pair of compasses at the centre, and a laurel wreath design around the outer edge. The REME Corps was formed in 1942, and this style of cap badge was in use between 1942 and 1947. It has a slide fitting on the back. Date: 1940s

© Mary Evans Picture Library/Gill Stoker

Flannan Islands Lighthouse Keepers Disappearance 1901

Page from The Sphere reporting on the mysterious disappearance of three staff from the Flannan Islands Lighthouse. James Ducat, principal keeper, Thomas Marshall and Donald McArthur all vanished from the lighthouse, and the fact that all ropes in the storehouse had been removed and the crane near the lighthouse broken away led to the theory that the men probably lost their lives in an attempt to secure the crane during a severe gale. Date: 1901

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

Gloster Meteor Mk.8 - Mk.7 combination G-ANSO

Gloster Meteor Mk.8 - Mk.7 combination (ex GAF) G-ANSO, at the 1954 SBAC Farnborough air-show. Built as an F Mk.8 airframe with strengthened outer wings, the Ground Attack Fighter (GAF) aka Reaper, was first flown, as G-AMCJ, on 4 September 1950 at Moreton Valence by Jim Cooksey, appearing at the 1950 SBAC Farnborough air-show very soon afterwards. Extensive flying and weapons firing trials failed to secure an order so ACMJ had the forward fuselage replaced with that of a Meteor T Mk.7 in 1954 and registered as G-ANSO, retaining the strengthened wings and wing-tip fuel tanks of the GAF. G-ANSO was modified again in 1959, with a T Mk.7 rear fuselage and outer wings, for Svensk Flygtjanst AB (Swedair Ltd), as SE-DCC. Date: 1954

© The Peter Butt Aviation Collection / Mary Evans