(Article reproduced with the kind permission of Aviation News):

Kenneth Bannerman, Director General of ABCT

The Airfields of Britain Conservation Trust exists to preserve and protect British airfields, to recognise their location through dedicated site memorials, and to educate future generations. The freedoms we enjoy today would not have been possible without the defence of these islands, made possible in part by the efforts of those who lived and worked on the airfields of the British Isles. Aviation News editor David Baker interviewed Kenneth Bannerman, Director General of ABCT, to find out what it does and what motivates him.

DB Tell me, Kenneth, what got you into the work you currently do with ABCT?

KB Sheer chance. During a family holiday in 1973 I encountered the distinctive Dome Trainer at Langham in Norfolk. The building intrigued this mere nine year old who rapidly realised the phenomenal untapped potential Britain’s airfields offered. Whether active or disused, these places just seemed to matter, but I equally foresaw a huge crisis and tragedy in the making. So while others of my age immersed themselves in football or pop music, I quietly dropped palaeontology for airfields. Looking back, this encounter proved a real life-changing event.

DB Given that you have interests closely related to aviation, what for you are your primary goals in the work you do with ABCT?

KB Really good plans are always simple but subtly different ones. Easily top priority is to erect a standardised airfield - not unit – memorial at each known British disused site. Over 1,300 will eventually appear and latest estimates suggest an overall cost in the region of £6 million. Plans are already underway, so watch this space. The 2,000 page website is meanwhile fully operational and again breaking new ground. Education or rather employment support is another defined aim and then we have the combined intention of highlighting the all-round impact of airfields on Britain and the almighty crisis facing our disused sites. This waste of perfectly good facilities and historical vandalism cannot be allowed to go on.

DB What do you see as the function of ABCT and how do you intend to carry that out?

KB Function is a pejorative word: it depends whether one means a purpose or a reason. For some of us a reason is vital to everyday life. What I mean by this is that still too many people just do not ‘get’ airfields or their supporters – people like me have all sorts of other interests or ambitions and are not one-trick ponies. Airfields themselves are anything but a narrow subject and encompass so many areas of life. Someone once patronisingly said to me ‘But you have a purpose’, a particularly insensitive and selfish flip comment to make which inferred a sad loser with no life – me, of all people! No, a purpose equals convenient workhorse but a reason equals real living. So the reason ABCT exists is to look at the panoramic big picture surrounding all aspects of Britain’s airfields and deal with this multilayered subject in all possible ways. Every airfield is famously different and requires special needs. People of all ages and both sexes are readily appearing to offer any help they can.

DB What are your immediate goals with airfield preservation and how does ABCT get the money it needs to carry out its objectives?

KB Apart from memorials, ABCT is operating free-fire to assist right across Britain. And we are achieving some truly spectacular results: saving Tangmere from annihilation, protecting other airfields or individual structures, helping numerous organisations and people, uncovering fresh historical facts. The complete unpredictability of this subject ensures almost anything could happen. Certainly no sooner had ABCT publicly emerged than the future clearly looked rosy. When I attended a church display at Great Massingham in Norfolk during July 2006 word had unquestionably already got around – here was a brand new support operation which meant business. Public donations are coming in as we speak.

DB Tell me a bit about your other life, I believe you are a successful businessman. Are the two things related?

KB Yes and no: it is a convoluted tale. If you dare to be different and perhaps have visionary qualities, life at times is bound to be a hard slog. I have fortunately consistently won but not exactly strolled along either. You could almost say my life might be viewed as an allegory for our airfields. Academically I was seen as an enigma, once seriously being referred to as a genius somehow not that good at exams but still possessing an indefinable ‘something’ – again a bit like our airfields I suppose. Severe disillusionment after uncovering a conspiratorial revelation meant my efforts were therefore concentrated upon various bigger, futuristic ideas, in particular how to make money, writing and then this new airfield idea – all largely correlated and exactly what I do today. You must play to your strengths. The 1980s proved exceptionally grim but it was a case of sticking to principles and having to tough it out. Fair to say I have massively won in all sorts of ways including airfields but at significantly heavy personal cost through ploughing a lonely furrow. Again it all comes back to the difference between purpose and reason: life could always be better still.

DB What difficulties do you face and where are your worst demons – apathy, planning officials, government bureaucracy or what?

KB Yes, apathy to a degree but people themselves have always been the biggest problem. Too many people were just too slow and too conventional – obsessive team-workers totally devoid of imagination who should be utterly ashamed concerning their actions and attitudes – or conversely lack of them. I have lost count of the people who have let both me and our airfields down over the years. What really turns your stomach is the duplicity involved instead of operating for the common good. What a huge mistake on their parts – if only people had known who they were dealing with… Both ABCT and I however have enjoyed the last laugh while our opponents have missed out in every way from the shared opportunities and immense sense of achievement to the sheer fun of it all. Otherwise I have had to face some appalling personal problems and risks in the past to smooth the way for ABCT, too many to mention but not forgetting the time falling debris from two gliders colliding overhead nearly killed me. The workload has been a killer too but on balance worth the tremendous stress and strain. But the apathy and ignorance will never quite go away.

DB You have a clear view of where you want this to go – are there any seriously bold ambitions for the out-years of this work?

KB Again a major ambition is already occurring: we have made people stop and think about our airfields and what is happening to them. You cannot possibly measure the value of something like that. Even my launch speech on the website has had quite an effect. People are quite rightly now dismissing the hoary anti-airfield chestnuts such as hedgerows being denuded or the environment damaged – all total nonsense – and seeing their indefinable but incredible qualities. Our disused airfields especially exude thrillingly electric and dynamic atmospheres, exciting and glamorous places soaked in history and achievement with an aura demanding total respect. The Vox Pop website section shows there are many sensible people about, judging by comments expressed about ABCT or the website, airfields in general or even me. Some of us would virtually die for several favourable comments received. Never mind that ABCT could visually change Britain through our memorials, we could and indeed are completely changing the mindsets of people for ever. Not even I fully envisaged that development could happen so quickly, if at all.

DB Do you see it within your remit to support re-enactment work on a permanent basis. I am thinking here of restoration groups that could give privately owned airfields a wartime feel, with workshops, fully equipped hangars, equipped and manned control towers, etc. for paying visitors. Or is that too ambitious?

KB One or two people have already made suggestions of this nature, perfectly viable ideas currently being investigated. But there are easier plans which can come from lateral thinking. The Helpful Links website section features some vast organisations not immediately associated with airfields which have eagerly come to us. This is a great example of how networking should operate i.e. relaxed classiness and not desperate insincerity as one of our Vox Pop contributors maintains. Airfield tourism has proved an extremely successful area, yet another scheme I thought could be a huge success years ago. Overall the moneymaking potential beggars belief. Any normal person would say, looking at our airfields and their supporters: ‘Now there are real winners, terrifically genuine and committed types, stick in with them.’ Our airfields can do absolutely anything – and yet it is still not good enough for some people. I know the feeling – but that is another story.

DB Tell me a little about resources – what are going to be the greatest challenges in the years ahead?

KB Any charity supremo will tell you no money is ever enough. Our airfields have always faced and overcome innumerable difficulties and more will inevitably appear, ranging from the realms of science fiction to more obvious examples. We must keep hammering home the message that Britain’s airfields are astonishingly brilliant places which have improved their country out of all recognition, saved the world not once but three times, but must always be fully recognised for their unparalleled qualities. And the best resources are the present and future younger generations who can continue to preach this collective message.

DB Finally, how long do you see yourself being involved in this work?

KB I would like to do various other things with my life, especially as I sense a personal feeling of a desperate race against time. But I shall always be heavily involved right to the end as ABCT’s Director General because this is a real fight to the death with nothing to lose whatsoever. You cannot compromise in life. Compromise means not achieving precisely what is required and accepting second best. This whole story and my involvement are about sheer certainty, relentless consistency and a sense of moral righteousness. Britain has treated its airfields diabolically over the years. Both ABCT and I are going for the absolute kill with this idea, because we are right in every way. Where until recently existed the gratitude or recognition for Britain’s airfields? But now it is a different story and life is going to be better for all of us. Miracles can happen.