Mosquito Coast

It's that time of the year again when autumn winds presage the dusting down of dark overcoats and the button-holing of red paper poppies. Three years ago I wrote and photographed a little book on war memorials called Lest We Forget, and whilst putting a few pages front and back cataloguing a random selection from thousands of stone crosses, I was mostly concerned with discovering the more unusual memorials. I certainly found a perfect candidate out on the flatlands of the Dengie Peninsular in Essex. This aeroplane marks the passing of those serving at RAF Bradwell Bay where Spitfires and Hurricanes fought on the front line of aerial defence in the Second World War. This, however, is a depiction of a Mosquito, painted in the colours of an RAF Northern Europe day fighter. I find the image of what looks like a plane embedded nose-down in the earth slightly disturbing, but in its own way it perhaps reflects the outstretched arms of a more conventional cross.