Hi! Spent time at WATTON as a Scaleybrat in 1978-79. Actually now interested in anyone with memories of the old "Ground Monitoring" or "Security Monitoring Section" that moved to RAF Wythall in November 1951, which had been part of the CSE up until then 🙂 Did anyone serve on that section at all???

@John Burns. Hi John, thanks for commenting. The Museum you visited was the progenitor of this site. We moved it a number of times From Barrack Block 25 to the old Guardroom and there to the old Officers Mess which is pictured on the site. We used to open especially for ROC camps and they were kind enough to present us with a glass tankard as a thank you which I still have 🙂 In total, over the years, the Museum raised many thousands of pounds for RAFA and ACA Happy days! Julian, Keeper of the memories on this site.

I just wanted to add that this is a great website, very well researched and a nice simple no silly frills layout. Great work.

I stumbled across your excellent website as in the 1950s my elder brother lived in married quarters there. In reviewing the Guest entries I was amazed to see a few references to a former RAF Watton resident Roger Byron-Collins who went to the same school as my brother Hammonds in Swaffham. Another coincidence as a part time property investor a few years ago I came across Roger when I bought a couple of former USAF bungalows nearby at RAF Sculthorpe, and three houses at RAF West Raynham and RAF Lakenheath. Like our father Roger's father was either a pilot or navigator on the B29 Washingtons at RAF Marham and RAF Watton.

My mother in laws first husband, Sergeant John Charles William Hook 1271836 wrote in his diary of 1942 that he spent some time at Watton RAF camp. I am completing my family tree, do you have any information about him, please? He was killed on the 2nd January 1943 over Lough Foyle, Donegal, Northern Ireland when the plane they were flying hit a bad snow storm and the plane came down. I believe there were 5 others in the plane and I don’t know if he was piloting the plane at the time. Thank you in advance. Elaine Hook

Married Quarters, airfields, Roger Byron Collins & Welbeck Estate Having lived in MQs at RAF Watton between 1958 and 1961 I was lucky enough to live a few doors down from M/Nav Arthur Collins, his wife Doreen and his two sons Robert and Roger in Dixon Close. Arthur was aircrew B29 Washington and our families became close. Sadly, l totally lost touch with the Collins family! That was until a most incredible situation happened 20 years later when I purchased two former RAF houses in Lincolnshire at RAF Hemswell and RAF Faldingworth.. It transpired that the companies that owned both the sites, Welbeck Estate Group were owned by none other than Roger Collins. After I finally made contact with him, he was delighted to meet up with his old pal again...and he gave me a decent discount! My goodness he had advanced himself so after reading various references on their website: www.twsg.co.uk I decided to look further into this amazing character's background both for his love of military housing but his benevolence in dealing with former military personnel. For the past 40 years Roger has specialised in the purchase of former MOD property -mainly married quarters but also all the MQs and entire tech site at RAF West Raynham plus a couple of ex RAF airfields at North Coates and Hemswell and the former Bomber/Strike Command HQ Bawtry Hall. It transpired that Roger and all his Welbeck colleagues have former RAF backgrounds. He is their driving force and his specialty has always been the preservation and retention of former MOD properties which has been his stated aim since he bought his first military site at in 1979. With former MOD housing after purchase the houses were modernised to a high standard and when were initially resold a large number of the buyers over the years have been serving or ex RAF personnel as Byron-Collins operated a discount and assistance scheme. When making further investigations I learnt that Roger's father Arthur, was long term RAF aircrew serving from 1939 to before retiring at RAF Northolt in 1979. His first home was an MQ at RAF Driffield in 1946 moving in 1950 to RAF Waddington where Arthur flew Avro Lincolns and B29 Washingtons. They lived in Married Quarters between 1946 and 1970 at RAF Driffield, Hemswell, Waddington, Marham, Waterbeach, Watton, Tangmere, Khormaksar Aden, Wildenrath Germany and Northolt. Whilst living in MQs at RAF Northolt he attended college training as a surveyor in London. After qualifying he went into the property business making a decision to specialise in the purchase, preservation of not only married quarters but technical domestic and airfield sites. Whilst living at RAF Northolt he made friends with a senior USAF military neighbour and as a result in 1979 he went to Arlington Virginia USA opening an office opposite The Pentagon. Within 6 months he purchased two apartment blocks of 480 apartments named The Cavendish and The Lancaster adjacent to the Pentagon and US Navy Annex and occupied mainly by the US military. Roger commuted every two weeks between Heathrow and Washington Dulles airports by Concorde as the UK business was flourishing as well. In 1979 Mrs Thatcher's Conservative government announced there were a surplus of MQ sites and disused airfields which were to be sold. Roger purchased his first military site which comprised 127 former NCO quarters at RAF Faldingworth, north of Lincoln. From his experience gained with his US military housing purchase andhe applied an American concept to these houses by the installation of a swimming pool and club house which he donated to all the buyers. The married quarters were renamed The Virginia Estate after his recently opened office in Arlington Virginia and the roads renamed after areas around Washington such as Washington Drive, Prince William Road, Fairfax Road. At only 33 years of age this proved very successful for him and he went on to acquire a further ex MOD 35 sites over the following 35 years including the following: 570 USAF MQs RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk. (Lords Walk Estate) Let to the USAF 300 RAF/USAF MQs RAF Bicester, Oxon 266 MOD Hirings Tricomm Portfolio let to MOD located in Bristol & Bath 172 Married Quarters RAF West Raynham 185 acre airfield site, tech site, 4 hangars 127 Married Quarters RAF Faldingworth, Lincs (renamed Virginia Estate) 133 Married Quarters RAF Middleton St George Durham (renamed Virginia Estate) 80 Married Quarters RAF Colerne, Chippenham, Wilts (Thickwood Estate) 30 Married Quarters RNAS Yeovilton, Somerset (Hermes Place) 20 Married Quarters RNAS Yeovilton, Somerset (Lyster Close) 110 Married Quarters RN Chatham, Kent (Walderslade MQ’s) 20 Married Quarters Army Quarters, Barlow, Yorks 55 Married Quarters RAF Halton, Bucks 66 RAF & Army MQs RAF Ballykelly/Shackleton Barracks, Northern Ireland 80 Married Quarters RNAS Eglinton, Londonderry (City Airport) Northern Ireland 92 Married Quarters RN Rosyth, Edinburgh, Scotland 321 Officers NCO MQ RAF Kinloss, Forres. Scotland 144 USAF & RAF MQs RAF Edzell, Brechin, Scotland 60 Married Quarters RAF Brize Norton, Oxon 30 Married Quarters RNAS Portland, Dorset (Southwell) 30 Married Quarters RNAS Portland, Dorset (Easton) Airfield & Tech. Site RAF Hemswell, Lincs 70 Married Quarters RAF Manby, Lincs (Siskin Crescent MQs) 42 Married Quarters RAF Brawdy, Dyfed (St Davids Estate Haverfordwest) Bomber Command HQ RAF Bawtry, S.Yorks 22 Married Quarters RAF Hemswell, Lincs 70 Married Quarters RAF North Coates, Lincs. Airfield & 260,000 sq ft Tech.Site. 42 Married Quarters RAF Shotley Gate (HMS Ganges) 90 Army MQs Tidworth Garrison Wilts. (Perham Down MQs) 110 Married Quarters RAF Scampton, Lincs 101 Married Quarters RAF Harwell, Oxon (UKAEA housing) 93 Married Quarters RAF Finningley, Doncaster 80 Married Quarters RAF Upwood, Cambs 50 Married Quarters RAF Linton on Ouse, Yorks 30 Married Quarters RAF Cranwell, Huntingdon 210 USAF MQs RAF Sculthorpe, Norfolk and 235 Acre Tech. Site In 1996 the Conservative government decided to privatise the entire 55,000 Married Quarter Estate in England and Wales occupied by serving UK personnel. In partnership with Bankers Trust, Hodge Bank, Europa Capital and a few UK pension funds Roger raised £1.66 billion for the Ministry of Defence's 55,000 married quarter houses estate. Out of an original list of 100 approved bidders Roger's Group and the Japanese bank Nomura were the final two approved buyers. Despite severe criticism by former and serving military personnel at that time Michael Portillo, the then Defence Minister awarded the sale to Nomura and Roger's all British Consortium fully funded offer lost out by less than 0.2% of the sale's price. Nomura quickly decided to create an English sounding company to manage the estate and Annington Homes was formed that remains in place as the Married Quarter owners. As well as Roger's MOD property interests, he had also started an airline! See link: www.saadonline.uk/archives/190 Whilst living with his parents at RAF Northolt at 17 he decided to obtain a PPL and started on a course at nearby Denham! He realised that it was only for professionals as he nearly had a nasty accident on landing. However, he continued his aviation interest and purchased his first ex RAF Devon at 25 from Lulsgate Aviation Services of Bristol airport. Shortly afterwards he was approached by Harry Chang, a pilot of the then recently collapsed 'troop carrier' airline, Lloyds International who had available two contracts with Conoco and The Ford Motor Company. The first was to move offshore oil rig workers around North Sea ports and the second to convey spare parts for the recently introduced Ford Capri between Dagenham and Dusseldorf. With these contracts he formed Macedonian Aviation and immediately established a base at Southend airport. In 1972 he went before the Civil Aviation Committee to obtain an AOC and the CAA chairman at the time was Lord Boyd-Carpenter. When the AOC was granted, he passed comment that "Mr Byron-Collins at only 26 years of age must be one of the youngest persons in British aviation history to be awarded with an AOC". Roger's earliest contracts were in the late autumn of 1972 when he ferried Michael Jackson, Jackson Five on their UK tour and Donny Osmond and the Osmonds.

Maurice R Heard -stationed RAF Watton 1970 / 1972 Eastern Radar. Bit of a culture shock after being on ATC duties at RAF Chivenor for 4years. Never ending walk down that roman road to the camp. Still when off-duty a nice cup coffee was had in the cafe opposite the camp main gates.

Served at Eastern Radar 1973-75 and 1976-77.

This is so important to many people.. I was there from 74 to 76.

John Hanson from Birmingham wrote on May 15, 2020 at 5:24 pm: Im a retired Police officer half in CID and currently working with USAF Colonel Charles Halt about the incident that happened just outside RAF Woodbridge in 1980. I'm hoping that some of the guys and ladies that worked at Watton can let me have their views on what I regard as a load of rubbish which has been published about an incident at Watton in late December 1980....You see I wasn't there ,I have no idea about the structure of how the base was operated ....AS you can see from the report which follows, I cant believe that a 'flap' at the base following ,object tracked on radar would have initiated two Police dog handlers to investigate....none of what they say seems to be the appropriate response of an RAF base during what a period of cold war...anyway let me know please .He claims that following radar tracking a large object moving just before midnight the 27th of December 1980, two RAF police dog handlers were instructed to investigate a report of strange lights heading in from the north near the airfield fence to the west of RAF Watton. This incursion caused the station officer to get into a terrible flap. Two airmen arrived at the fence to find several figures shining what appeared to be green and blue lights into the sky. This is what he had to say, “They were about 100-150 yards away from us and when we turned on our searchlights on them, they ran off very quickly, we only saw the figures for a little while in the searchlight, and these didn’t always work. We got the impression that their clothes were silvery and bulky and appeared to suck in –or not reflect the light after a few seconds .They wore visors which looked like they were split into two halves like big eyes. We had to use infrared light because we couldn’t see them in the normal searchlight .The dogs started going crazy and wouldn’t obey the code words which was trifle to bite and custard to stop. We made out report and were told to continue out patrol. The next morning a high ranking British officer questioned Thompson and his colleague .The men were advised to forget what they had seen because it was only poachers, and it was now a matter for the local police. Thompson says that their note books, duty log and occurrence book went missing! Well I have to say that I regard this as nonsense or even disinformation. The reason is that if an incursion had take place, one would think that the base would have been placed on high alert......30 years in the police makes one not to much skeptical but wary of accepting reports which have very little substance. I hope some one can help....corroborate my misgivings....thanks . Also thanks to Julian for assisting me in this matter . Once as a young officer I would have thought some body was off their trolley if they had told me about a UFO sighting (ambiguous as that terminology is) not now. At the end of the day unlike others that proliferate the UFO organisations -who I keep away from I cant give an answers,. The ones that do well !