Far from being a nuisance or a time wasting exercise. Investigating the story behind these recently discovered lost family photos is a part of our work that all the team behind this unique enterprise enjoy. So when a lady brought in a photo of a giant Airship over the town, fellow team member Geoff Perrior and I knew we were in for a great deal of pleasurable digging though the archives.

Our starting point was the a tiny box brownie black and white photo, dog eared and shabby from over seventy years in a photo album. All the lady who had brought it in could tell us, was she knew from her relations it had been taken from a location somewhere in Brentwood. Now she wondered if we could tell her anything about it.

The photo showed an Airship over some rooftops. But the question was, when had it been taken and what was the identity of the ship of the sky. At first Geoff - a man with a life long passion for aviation. Was of the opinion that it showed a German Zeppelin and felt it could have been the 800 hundred foot long Hindenburg. Which had been built as the pride of Hitler's Germany in 1936, only to be lost two years later in a massive explosion whilst attempting to land in Lakehurst in New Jersey. I said I disagreed, and felt it was either the British built R100 or R101, both built some seven years earlier in 1929. An investigation was called for, so with Geoff raiding his personal library for information I turned to my computer to try a bit of photographic interpretation.

Our small photo was in remarkably good condition considering it's age, so it was a simple matter with the computer to electronically clean it up, and enlarge the tiny segment of the print showing the mysterious Airship. The aim being to read any identification markings on her flanks. Unfortunately because of the quality of the cheep lens used in Box-brownie cameras of that time, and the quality of film and print, this was just impossible. Also the fact that the shot had been taken in bad light didn't help either, but what did show up clearly were the engine pods and the crafts tail fins. These turned out to be the vital clue, for a search on the Internet soon found a site devoted to the history of British Airships. They held plans of every airship this nation built or acquired, and it soon turned out the design of the tail fins were unique to the R101.

This was one of the two giant British airships built at Cardington in the late nineteen twenties at a time when Britain was looking for a way to link the empire together by air. As the general view of the time held that long distance travel by air was more comfortable by an Airship with it's shipboard like configuration of cabins, restaurants and observation lounges then a small a dangerous aircraft, then little more then short range bi-planes. The Government decided to fund the building of the R101. Whilst at the same time a rival design - the R100 was built alongside as private venture. Yet another reason was that Germany were the leaders in Airship construction and if airship routes were going to link the Empire, Britain wanted British airships to fly them. Their construction hangers still exist, and are still the home of British Airship construction and development and also the home of a vast on line historical archive. This surprisingly gave us the answer to the possible dates the R101 might have been seen over Brentwood. A search revealed the crafts flight log, showing that this massive ship of the sky, at 730 foot long, had made a total of twelve flights from its Cardington base. With at least three of them passing within sight of the town. But could we narrow it down to a Particular date.

A lucky find by Geoff suggested we might. For on a hunch, he had trawled through the archive files of the Gazette and had found a report from its issue dated 1st February 1930. Headlined, Giant Airship over Brentwood the reporter had written a wonderful colourful report of the town's reactions….

"They tumbled into the streets, out of houses, offices and shops, with pens behind their ears, dust pans in their hands and one shop assistant still wrapping a parcel of sausages." Our Nineteen Twenties Gazette reporter had written, continuing, "A droning noise was heard far aloft. All eyes peered expectantly to the grey heavens. A long sinister grey shape was visiable – the giant airship enshrouded by mist. It was impossible to see her number as she sailed slowly towards the metropolis. A man behind the writer remarked caustically "an Aeronautical Obscenity." Another in the high street trenches ejaculated expressively, "Blimey!" There was no casualties as the Airship faded from sight. So did the sightseers."

As you can see, full of colour. But a little short of actual information about its identification. However another close examination of that original photo gave us another clue. In the enlargements we had made, two white lines could clearly be see at two points along her hull.

We knew from the short history of this tragic craft that the seven flights made during 1929 had shown that she was unstable, not processing enough lift in her giant gas bags. So during the winter months they had taken her back inside the great hangers of Cardington, cut the craft in two and inserted a series of extra gas-bags. If our twin white lines were the result of this operation we had narrowed the date to the photo to 1930.

There is just one snag, If the date of February 1st is correct for the Gazette reporters story, then that Airship he had seen over Brentwood was definitely not the R101. We know that the only flights she made over the town were in June on the 28th whilst on a proving flight and again in October 1930 on the 1st and 2nd finally on the early evening of Oct 4th on her outward passage of her maiden flight with passengers to India, This was the tragic voyage which was to lead to her complete destruction in a storm on a French Hill side at Beauvais.

So taking into account the fact that the light level shown on the photo is low, this would suggest an evening which means that the best we can come up at the present time is that we feel the photo must be of it's final voyage on 4th October 1930.

As for the Airship that startled the good citizens of the town in the February of that year. That must remain for now another mystery. It could have been rival R100 or some other Airship. the Our only hope is that other townsfolk back then, might have taken photos of that ship of the sky, and that come the next Brentwood memories exchange exhibition, we'll get a chance to see them.

ENDS 1,274 words

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