Sunday 9 November 2008

Behind the scenes of 'Airfield Focus'

Over the years I have often been asked how the 'Airfield Focus' concept came about and what happens 'behind the scenes - well, like many things that happen at a Bar, it seemed like a good idea at the time!

Way back in 1992 John Hamlin, Aldon Ferguson and myself met up to discuss the possibility of my publishing company producing a series of booklets, each one looking at the history of a particular airfield. They came up with a good sales pitch to present to a publisher - a 24 page booklet, similar to the old aircraft ‘Profile’ series containing much more information that the little ‘thumbnails’ as contained in ‘Action Stations’ but at the same time way cheaper than the specialist hardback airfield histories. I bought into it, and ‘Airfield Focus’ series was born!

Originally the idea was to target the aviation enthusiast with a standard format - 24 pages, 20 pictures, detailed of united flying from each field and at least one map. We were - and still are - more than happy to take ‘authors’ who have never written before, for if they are interested in a specific airfield they are more likely to have detailed information and pictures that have never been seen before than someone we just contacted!

For the first twenty-five editions or so we stuck to the original format, but it was clear that things needed to be more flexible and that our target demographic was too specialist and restrictive. More and more people were getting into local history and, although many of these potential readers would not know a specific aircraft type if hit them between the teeth, they were interested in what happened ‘...on that large area of land just down the road’. They did not know the difference between a T2 or Bellman hangar, but they were interested in what was there! Market research showed that use of aviation ‘jargon’ scared people away - fill the pages with OTUs, BSTUs, Type 2548c/55s, W451/42s, FCCRS’ and SofAC/SACs and most people ‘switch off and head for the hills’, which meant that we lost a sale!

We changed from conventional to digital printing which allowed more flexibility of print-runs and although we went smaller in page size, we went larger in number of pages - by settling on an A5 format we can now go up to 56 pages - and still manage to keep the price under £5.00!

Our big problem was that while encouraging interest in airfields we could not be seen to be encouraging our readership to actually go wandering all over airfields willy-nilly. This we did in two ways; firstly by arranging our own access in advance. Sometimes these negotiations takes months - especially as many former airfields now seem to be game reserves of one kind or another! We always re-assure the landowner or their agents in the form of their Managers or Gamekeepers that we ALWAYS print a ‘warning’ about trespass in every edition. Once permission is granted for us to enter a site, we then set out about getting current pictures - and we prefer doing currently active airfields in the summer because of the better light, but disused and abandoned ones are reserved for photo-shoots in the winter, for that is when there is less undergrowth around. The reason?... it’s easier to see where all the holes and trenches are! We also never enter a disused airfield on our own - just in case there are any accidents!

It’s amazing how fast mother nature is reclaiming the abandoned fields - and it’s happening at an accelerating rate. We’ve discovered much on the old military bases - such munitions of just about every calibre - we’ve not found any bombs yet, but who knows! The biggest ‘danger’, and believe me there are plenty, can be just sheer deterioration - rotted away (or stolen) manhole covers in technical and domestic sites that create deep traps for the unwary and buildings, such as the old Control Tower at Kings Cliffe, that are now so fragile they shake if you walk in them! One of the worse hazards are the semi-underground structures such as ground defence sites and Battle Headquarters. Often these are flooded by water several feet deep and are usually full of junk of all kinds - not a good place to enter, no matter how interesting!

One question we regulary get asked is ‘Seen any airfield ghosts?’ Our answer is always ‘No’, but there have been a number of unexplained events - all of a positive nature! There have been many times when we have thought we have been guided onto things, as if someone or something is saying ‘just come here and look at THIS!’

Back in the office it’s then down to bringing all the strands together. We take text from authors in just about every form but handwritten notes - typed, or direct from a computer, we don’t mind! Pictures we also take in any form - more and more people are providing images already scanned for us, but we will not accept anything with a resolution smaller than 200 dots per inch, preferably greater for better quality. We also have access to two very large private photographic collections - those of Peter Green and Simon Peters. This means we stand a fair chance of coming up with at least something representative of any missing images!

Then the text is edited, images scanned, maps prepared and all is assembled using Quark Express - and out pops the latest ‘Focus’! We get asked ‘Do you have a schedule?’ Unlike other publishers, no we don’t - we never know what will be the next edition, for as we are often dealing with newcomers to writing, and a lot cannot work to deadlines, no matter how hard we try - and in truth, we really don’t mind!

To date, we have produced 76 standard ‘Focii’ and 7 of the larger A4 sized wire-bound versions. Thats an average of about 6 a year. One thing we have learned is that no matter what airfield or airport we cover, it’s NEVER the right one, so if you fancy having a shot at getting your favourite airfield in print, get in touch with us!

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