A good result in the local media mainly about the talk by Natalie Larner who outlined the exploits of local First World War hero, Captain John Aidan Liddell VC MC, and his burial in the Holy Ghost cemetery in Basingstoke.
Two other subjects were covered, the Basingstoke Gazette featured our trip to Calshot Spit lifeboat station although a larger version appeared on their web site, and the Villager carried the exclusive story of our member Dave Kitson having a ‘grand day out’ on the London to Brighton veteran car rally.
This year our Christmas lunch was held at the Test Valley Golf Club and they did us proud with a decorated room and round tables and provided very good food.
President Stephen and Margaret Thair presided over the lunch where Grace was said by Rev John Dawson. Thanks were given to Paul Klinger who had organised all matters of the day including creating the puzzle and purchasing the floral sprays for the ladies.
Thanks are also due to Michael Luck who acted as the photographer on the day – while it is understandable that Tony and Lesley Acheson are missing as they left early but it is a mystery that David Wickens has avoided appearing in the rogues gallery. Mary Klinger kindly took the photographs of the room settings.
An extremely chilly but very sunny day greeted our group of twenty-one members and families of the Probus Club of Basingstoke for a visit to the RNLI Station at the very end of Calshot Spit.
Members and Wives/Lady Friends in Front of ‘B’ Class Lifeboat
The RNLI is the charity that saves lives at sea. Its volunteers provide a 24-hour search and rescue service around the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland coasts. The RNLI operates 238 lifeboat stations in the UK and Ireland and more than 240 lifeguard units on beaches around the UK and Channel Islands. The RNLI is independent of Coastguard and government and depends on voluntary donations and legacies to maintain its rescue service.
President Stephen Thair Presents Cheque to Charlie Threlfall l
Since the RNLI was founded in 1824, its lifeboat crews and lifeguards have saved over 146,700 lives. Until its closure in 1961, Calshot Spit had been the site of RAF Calshot, which was the primary seaplane/flying boat development and training unit in the United Kingdom.
A historic seaplane at RAF Calshot, showcasing the site’s aviation heritage.Readying for takeoff
After the departure of the RAF, Hampshire County Council opened an educational activities centre on the site. The centre was regularly being asked by HM Coastguard to use its boats, to go out and rescue people in trouble off shore. The huge increase of maritime call-outs were such, that, negotiations were established with the RNLI, with a view to there being a more formalised rescue service for this busy stretch of water. A year was spent evaluating this proposition and as a result, a RNLI lifeboat station was established on the site in 1970.
In 1996, the RNLI funded the construction of new shore facilities for Calshot Station, constructed on concrete stanchions to prevent flooding. Hampshire County Council provided a new boarding jetty for use jointly by the lifeboat station and the Calshot Activity Centre.
Briefing About The R.N.L.I. by Charlie Threlfall
Various all-weather lifeboats have seen service at Calshot over the years, but in 2012, the Calshot board of trustees decided that the base would cease to be an all-weather facility. Consequently, the last larger Tyne class lifeboat was withdrawn on 4th of April of that year. Since then, Calshot has been officially re-designated as an Inshore lifeboat station with a responsibility stretching from the River Itchen bridge in Southampton, all the way down the Solent to the Isle of Wight. As such, it has necessitated keeping pace with improvements in facilities both for lifeboats and crews: not to mention the constantly evolving changes in equipment and operational procedures. Calshot at present, is equipped with both ‘D’ and ‘B’ class lifeboats. The D-class lifeboat is of an inflatable type serving the RNLI lifeboat fleet as well as a number of Independent Lifeboats around the UK and Ireland. It is one of the smallest lifeboats operated by the RNLI, and unlike other members of the inshore lifeboat fleet, does not have a rigid hull. At Calshot, it normally has a crew of three or and is primarily used for surfer/swimmer incidents as well as assisting in cliff or mud bank rescues. The very nature of its work requires a swift response, and the D-class can normally be deployed very quickly.
Explanation About ‘D’ Class Lifeboat
The much larger “Atlantic 85” B-class lifeboat named ‘Max Walls’ is stationed at Calshot. It is a fast inshore rescue craft and is named after Atlantic College in South Wales where it was designed. Capable of reaching a useful 35 kts, it can be deployed in shallow waters as well as handling challenging, open sea conditions. It is equipped with powerful twin 115hp Yamaha outboard engines and has a self-righting mechanism. It is also equipped with modern advanced navigation and communication systems.
All Aboard The ‘B’ Class Lifeboat Class Lifeboat
An incredible visit was had by all and we were royally treated to the fine hospitality afforded by the RNLI Calshot Crew. Due to the restricted space within the base, we were limited in party size. However, the Probus Club of Basingstoke has booked for a return trip in the spring of 2026
Sherfield-on-Loddon resident Natalie Larner gave an outline to the Probus Club of Basingstoke of Captain John Aidan Liddell VC MC whose 1915 burial in South View cemetery, Basingstoke was attended by many dignitaries and public crowds.
Although he was born near Newcastle in 1888, during the early 1900s and after the First World War, the Liddell family lived at Sherfield Manor which today is Sherfield School. As a lasting connection one of the buildings at Sherfield Village Hall bears the family name and on 11 November each year a special service is held to commemorate his memory.
John Aidan Liddell1888 – 1915
Following Balliol College, Oxford, where he had obtained a first-class degree in Zoology, at the age of 24 and not wanting to be a ’slacker’ John Aidan Liddell joined the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders following his maternal grandfather into a Scottish regiment.
When the first World War started, with the rank of Lieutenant, he commanded a Maxim machine gun section on the Western Front that remained unsupported for 43 days. For this action and for saving the Company Sergeant Major he received the MC.
This long time at the front, spent either in action or the suboptimal conditions of front-line trenches, where he changed his socks only once in that time, took a toll on his health and he was given leave.
Lt Liddell at the Western Front
Before the outbreak of the war, he had trained as a pilot, flying a Boxkite at the Vickers school at Brooklands and following recuperation from his battlefield experiences he joined the Royal Flying Corps being promoted to Captain and was stationed at Saint-Omer in northern France.
RE 5 Biplane with pilot positioned behind observer who had Lewis light machine gun
On 31 July 1915 he, together with an observer/gunner, was flying a two-seater RE 5 biplane at 5,000 feet near Bruges when they were fired on by enemy aircraft. Badly wounded with a shattered right thigh he lost consciousness and the plane nose-dived. Regaining consciousness, he was able to regain control at only 3,000 feet above enemy lines.
The plane was badly damaged and with the crew member, 2nd Lieutenant Roland Peck, also wounded, he managed to fly back to base saving not only the plane but also the life of his observer. Captain Liddell had his right leg amputated but died due to septicaemia a month later. He was 27 years old.
There had been much publicity in the British newspapers of this event so that when his body was brought back to England and following a Catholic mass held in London, the coffin travelled to Basingstoke by train where it was met with pipers from his regiment. The cortege passed through the town where crowds lined the streets and flags flown at half half-mast. His observer was amongst many who attended the funeral.
The posthumous VC was presented to his father by King George V at Buckingham Palace on 17 November 1915. Only four such medals were awarded to members of the Royal Flying Corps.
Several commemorative plaques of Captain John Aidan Liddell VC MC are found around Britain, but Sherfield-on-Loddon has its own memorials. His name can be seen topping the list of other local men who lost their lives during this conflict on the village war memorial. And in 2015, the century after his death, a commemorative engraved paving stone, atop a brick plinth, was positioned near the crossroad in the village. Sherfield-on-Loddon residents are justly proud of their local man who became a war hero.
Stephen Thair and Paul Klinger, as President and Vice President respectively, represented the Club at the Remembrance Sunday Service and commemoration which was held at the Basingstoke War Memorial.
The event was very well attended with Veterans, the Gurkhas, Cadets, Scouts and Guides marching in the Parade to take their positions around the War Memorial, and many members of the public in attendance.
The Salvation Army Band provided the music, and the Odiham Military Wives Choir sang two songs. The service was led by Chaplain Charles Lewis.
There was a well-timed flypast by a Chinook helicopter from RAF Odiham and the Two Minutes Silence was initiated by the Last Post performed by a member of the Salvation Army.
The first wreaths were laid by the Mayor of Basingstoke and Deane and other civic dignitaries, and then representatives of other organisations followed, Stephen Thair laying a wreath on behalf of the Club. The wreath-laying was followed by the Remembrance Service, led by the Chaplain.
The event was a very moving commemoration and remembrance of those who had given their lives on behalf of our Country so that we can enjoy the freedoms that we have today. It was encouraging that it was so well attended, not only by veterans of the armed services and members of the civilian uniformed services, but also by so many young people from schools and various youth organisations in the area.
Many people watch this annual event either as bystanders or seeing reports on television, the world-famous London to Brighton veteran car run. It was set up to celebrate the change in the law in 1896 that increased speed limits from 4 to 14 miles per hour dispensing with the need to have a man with a red flag walking in front of new-fangled self-propelled vehicles.
This year there was another celebration, that of it being the 125th anniversary of the 1,000 miles Trial round Britain of 1900. A Wolsey car that took place on that rally was also an entry on this year’s London to Brighton run.
A good reason, then, for Dave Kitson, a member of the Probus Club of Basingstoke with a well known penchant for things mechanical and aeronautical, to make a day of it. He could see the start in Hyde Park in London and then follow events by train and bus as the rally progressed to Brighton.
His travel plans immediately unravelled as the first train from Basingstoke on Sunday arrived in the capital at 8.35 am, far too late to see the first cars setting off at 7.00 am. So, he decided to watch the rally go past at Westminster Bridge. And it was here that things took an unexpected turn to the bizarre.
Standing below Big Ben as it chimed 8.45 am, a car, unusually with no passenger, stopped at the traffic lights. Dave made eye contact with the driver, raised his hitch-hiking thumb, pointed at the empty passenger seat and to his great surprise, was invited onboard. Not dressed for the exposure of an open car the kindly driver found a drover’s coat that went some way to avoid Dave becoming too cold.
A surprised Dave Kitson on board a 1904 Cadillac
Regulations state that all entries must have been manufactured before 1905 with the oldest participant this year being made in 1894. Our intrepid hitch hiker’s car, entry number 289, was a 1904 Cadillac which had a single cylinder eight horsepower horizontal engine, with two gears driving a chain to the rear wheels.
A similar Cadillac was sold six months ago for £145,000
The driver claimed that not only was this his 44th London to Brighton run but also in the rally this year he had another similar model of Cadillac being driven by a friend, and his son was driving a 1903 French made Panhard et Levassor which had a two-cylinder engine producing 7 horsepower. The three cars had a total value of around three hundred thousand pounds.
Not only did Dave have the unexpected pleasure of being a participant in this world-famous rally he had the additional duties of helping to look out for the route markers, make left arm signals and best of all acknowledge the applause of the spectators lining the route.
More than once, it was necessary to give the appropriate hand signal to drivers cutting across in front of a 121-year-old car that did not have ABS brakes and sometimes hardly any brakes at all.
Next to the Cadillac is the American made White steamer car
The RAC were out in force and in front of every stationary van was a veteran car in distress. It became obvious that as they caught up with the driver’s son that his Panhard was alarmingly emitting steam. They stopped at a petrol station to refill the radiator and carried on to Purley where many cars had pulled into a church car park for a desperately welcome hot coffee.
Much mechanic expertise ready to resolve any problems
It was there while investigating the water loss of the Panhard that a team of eight RAC mechanics diagnosed a seized water pump and declared the problem terminal. It was probably an unrealistic expectation that any of their service vans would carry a replacement water pump for an ancient French car.
End of the rally for the Panhard et Levassor with a seized water pump
It was here that Dave’s adventure came to a halt. The son took the dad’s Cadillac to drive on to Brighton while dad was left to organise rescue transport to take the Panhard back to Yorkshire after following to Brighton to collect both Cadillacs that were two of 340 cars that reached Brighton from 400 starters.
Dave travelled from Purley station back to Basingstoke, reflecting on his experience that was always the final scene in the Aardman Animation films when Wallace says” It had been a grand day out, Gromit.”
A split this month with the Portland Russian Spy Ring featuring in the Kempshott Kourier and the Chineham People magazine (a new A5 sized publication for us which was launched in the late spring this year).
The others all covered the History of Television with the Rabbiter and Bramley giving us full pages while the Link and Basinga used the reduced length report. A rare occurrence was that we were too late for the Villager magazine in Sherborne St John.
Speaker and Probus Club member, Gareth Lewis, outlined the development of a subject deeply affecting our lives: that of television.
Speaker Gareth Lewis
Where did it come from? Was it invented? Did it happen by accident? The concept of transmitting sound, let alone pictures by wire, was beyond the imaginations of the greatest minds in preceding years.
Although considered by many that television was simply ‘invented’ in this country by Scotsman John Logie Baird, there were many scientists before him in the 18th and 19th centuries whose developments paved the way that ultimately resulted in electronic television.
Italian Volta, in 1799, created the first battery. Using this invisible force of electricity Sir Humphrey Davy, inventor of the miners’ safety lamp, created the first arc lamp. In 1896, William Crookes developed the cathode ray tube to show that cathode rays could travel through space in straight lines causing residual gasses to glow. This was further developed by Ferdinand Braun in Germany with his phosphor-coated display tube which laid the groundwork for electronic imaging.
The brilliance at Cambridge University of JJ Thomson (Nobel Physics Prize recipient in 1906) further developed the tube, causing a “beam” of rays to be controlled. Several of his students and later his son all won the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Early in the 1900s, Archibald Campbell Simpson, a British Theoretical Scientist, published a paper proposing a ‘scanning system’ that would eventually form the basis of transmitting an image.
Baird used this electro-mechanical scanning method to develop the first transmission by wire from one room to another of the image of the head of a ventriloquist’s dummy. The British Government recognised the potential of such a system and funded its development.
John Logie Baird with his first transmission
It was the development of wireless transmissions following inventions by Marconi that the GPO became involved with the early radio broadcasts in 1906.
The British Broadcasting Company was formed 1922 as a trade body for the radio industry. It was converted in 1926 into The British Broadcasting Corporation and financed by a radio licence. Under government direction, the BBC played a pivotal role in bringing into existence the TV system using studios.
It will soon be 100 years since the Baird system of transmission using a scanning disk was first broadcast. The Baird Televisor sets sold to affluent Londoners were made by the Plessey Company and cost the equivalent of several year’s earning of the average man.
Meanwhile, in America, Philo Farnswoth, firstly at Westinghouse and then at RCA, in cooperation with Russian émigré Mr Zworykin, developed the first electronic practical TV camera tube, the Iconoscope. This was further developed by a British Russian scientist, Isaac Schoenberg at the EMI laboratories in Hayes, Middlesex, into a more robust and usable camera tube, the CPS Emitron. The first ‘High-Definition TV system” was in development.
Guided by the Government, in 1937 the BBC trialed both the mechanical Baird and the EMI electronic transmission systems eventually settling on the EMI/Marconi version that was able to provide an image consisting of 405 lines – the world’s first high-definition television.
Public television broadcasting began in the London area in 1936 but ceased in September 1939 at the outbreak of WW2.
Alexandra Palace began transmissions in 1936
Technical advances in radar made during hostilities brought improvements in the quality of transmissions when resuming in 1946. Again, the GPO was heavily involved in building lines to enable regional broadcasting to be introduced which necessitated substantial investment.
Gareth Lewis shared several memorable experiences from his forty-one-year career in broadcast engineering, which took him to many places around the world. Starting with the BBC in 1968 he worked in the famous Television Centre at White City as a project engineer. During the ruinous year of industrial unrest in the UK 1975, he moved to South Africa to be a part of the introduction of colour television in that country.
Returning to England after several years working overseas, he joined Sony in Basingstoke and among other things, became involved with the engineers working for a little-known Australian TV mogul – Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch wanted to broadcast four channels simultaneously by satellite to the UK, and Sony was able to supply equipment that would achieve this aim, which was the start of Sky Television based in Brentford, West London.
Gareth Lewis is of the opinion that over the next few years, the days of linear broadcasting schedules of programmes may disappear. It will become normal to stream programmes to watch at leisure, as is now happening with internet provided television. Possibly then, the days of the BBC licence fee may become a thing of the past.
The Kempshott Kourier, now publishing in the middle of each month means that they are behind the other local magazines in carrying our reports. Our Summer Pub Lunch is given good exposure with three Kempshott residents looking happy on the day.
The Rabbiter (Hatch Warren & Beggarwood), Villager (Sherborne St John and villages), and Link (Oakley and surrounds), all gave a full page to the Russian Portland Spy Ring.
Readers of a certain vintage will no doubt remember the infamous Portland Russian Spy Ring caught in 1961. It was recalled by speaker and Probus Club member David Stiles, who considers that he had a personal involvement before the spies were unmasked.
Following service in the RAF he continued as a contractor on RAF bases. While based at RAF Tangmere near Chichester he was tasked to prepare a civilian Vickers Varsity aircraft to be held under guard to be instantly ready for some secret operation.
Civilian Vickers Varsity aircraft as used by MI5
There were covert trips over three weeks when six men would arrive for night flights. He later concluded that these passengers were members of MI5, the section of the Secret Intelligence Service who are responsible for domestic security.
This period in history is known as ‘The Cold War’ with the Russians dividing Germany into East and West there was much spying activity by both sides. Honourably discharged from the Royal navy after the war, Harry Houghton had worked at HMS Osprey on Portland in Dorset. In 1952, he transferred to the British embassy in Warsaw, Poland.
He liked a drink and became involved with a woman who turned out to be a member of the Polish Intelligence Service. She encouraged him to import coffee from Britain to sell at inflated prices. When his side hustle was discovered and being short of money, he was encouraged to approach the Polish authorities to sell them secret information. Drinking concerns by superiors led him returning to England. He was posted to the Portland naval base in Dorset and more specifically in the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment.
Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment, Portland Dorset Much design work undertaken for HMS Dreadnought nuclear submarine
The AUWE was the centre of research into underwater weaponry and the first British nuclear submarine, HMS Dreadnought, had been launched in October 1960. Perhaps having been passed his details by Polish intelligence he was groomed by Gordon Lonsdale to develop an interest in Ethel Gee a filing clerk in AUWE. A spinster in her mid-forties she lived on Portland with her widowed mother and other family members.
Launch of HMS Dreadnought October 1960
Gordon Lonsdale was the cover name of Konon Molody, who had arrived in England under a Canadian passport and had been part of the Russian Spy Ring that had been operating in England since 1953. He provided the income needed by Harry Houghton that enabled a relationship to develop with Ethel Gee. Using a camera disguised as a cigarette lighter, Ethel would get copies of plans and information that he passed on to Lonsdale.
How would Lonsdale get this information to his masters in Moscow? Enter Helen and Peter Kroger. Their real names were Lona and Morris Cohen, American communists who used New Zealand passports. Lona Cohen had couriered classified documents about the “Manhattan Project” the US atom bomb development, to the Russian consulate in New York. The Americans considered they were ten years ahead of the Russians in nuclear development. Four years after the first atomic test, the Russians conducted their own nuclear bomb test, using specifications similar to those of the US device.
Peter and Helen Kroger rented a dormer bungalow in Ruislip in west London. Peter opened an antique book shop in London with customers across Europe including Russia. Gordon Lonsdale helped the Krogers dig out a cellar under their kitchen to house transmitting equipment while an aerial went in the roof.
Kroger’s rented bungalow in Ruislip, west London where a radio transmitter was under kitchen
Helen Kroger could transmit information in a couple of seconds. It was these transmissions that speaker David Stiles believes is what the mysterious flights with the MI5 personnel were tracking, eventually locating the bungalow in Ruislip.
Much of the information provided by Ethel Gee was reduced to microdots by Lonsdale and placed within the text in the antique books by Peter Kroger. The radio signals gave the destination address; the books were intercepted recovering the microdots.
In January 1961, MI5, which did not have power of arrest, arranged that the police detain all five people involved. This was followed by a trial at the Old Bailey in March 1961, held in camera. Certain information was released to the press, but much remains secret.
Gordon Londale was gaoled for 25 years but was involved in a spy swap after a four years. Helen and Peter Kroger received 20 years and were swapped for a British businessman. All three were received as Heroes of the Soviet Union. Harry Houghton and Ethel Gee received 15 years and were married in prison.
Over 2,000 documents had been photographed and David Stiles wondered if they really were not that important at all.
Probus Club of Basingstoke 
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