a grand day on the training area
 

2 of my old Army buddies now run the local Army training area, so when they needed an old vehicle to "March out" the retiring commandant i got the shout for the carrier. its only 10 miles from the Museum to the camp so we drove there on a lovley sunny day. we stood around for about an hour while the "tea and speaches" were all done and then to the smiles and waves of his old staff the col mounted the carrier and off we went.

Once the job was done as the area was on stand down for the day we were given free run to cabbie around the old haunts i use to know so well on exercise.

The training area was closed to the public in 1942 for training so it is very much a 1940 countryside with no modern houses or road markings to ruin any nice period photos.

we covered over 50 miles during the day and the old carrier ran great with my Jeep having to do 40 mph to keep up on some of the long straight roads. Total fuel used 6 gallons.

great stuff Shaun i saw these on your FB page tuther day cant wait until there are sufficient working carriers in the UK to make up a full carrier platoon and get some shots like this with everyone in period kit etc etc....i love stuff like that

If the training area has been closed to the public since 1942, there must be a lot of overgrowth and deteriorating man-made infrastructure. Anything noteworthy or quaint?

When the Camp Valcartier training area expanded north beyond its boundaries to take in the next set of crossroads, at least one village was absorbed. It was odd seeing pink and pale orange houses with shutters and no signs of life. In fact when I had to build a defensive positions (so armoured officers could attack us for the staff) I found old cancelled cheques and papers from the 1950's in the attic of our designated position.

to true, loads of interesting places, there were 4 villages evacuated. once clear of Civis the army moved in, dug in and shelled the places. one of old RVs was a pub called the "Cock inn" in reallity in was just a pile of rubble grassed over with the odd bit of wall sticking out. Tottington Village is fairly complete with many building being repaired for troops to fight from ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tottington,_Norfolk ). at one of the old big farm houses ( i mean a pile of rubble) there is still the relativly flat area of grass with 2 iron posts sticking up that use to be the tennis court. this was the training area that most of the Dads Army shows were filmed in fact in the 3rd photo i posted the area behind the carrier is the ground they run up with pyro and smoke going off while the credits are rolling.

5 years ago we took a couple of Carriers and a tilly over the same area, at the time they had a WW2 bailey bridge so we could not miss that photo op.