PASSING Smiths Industries at Bishops Cleeve, which has provided employment for the Vale and North Cotswolds for more than 60 years, memories came flooding back for Michael J Barnard. He has been talking to reporter Gerry Barnett about them and an unusual connection with RAF Defford.

THE first Smiths factory at Bishops Cleeve in 1940, was appropriately named CH1 (Cheltenham) but it was way back in 1851 that Samuel Smith first started his watches and clocks business in London, Mr Barnard said.

Over the years the Smiths heirs continued to expand the business supplying the motor and aviation market with wonderfully built clocks, indicators of all kinds and instruments of rare quality.

Smiths instruments, said Mr Barnard, auto pilots and equipment were fitted to many legendary aircraft such as the Lancaster, Whitley and Wellington, just a few of the many famous aircraft stamped with the Smiths name on their instrument panels.

Mr Barnard said it was 1911 when an indicator for rpm was fitted to a Blackburn aircraft, but it was in February 1945 that an aviation drama involving an aircraft from RAF Defford occurred in the skies to the west of the factory near Coombe Hill, Tewkesbury.

Air Traffic Control at RAF Defford, said Mr Barnard, was alerted that one of their Spitfires EN 915 on its way back from Wales had developed rudder problems, resulting in the chances of the aircraft making a safe landing nil. The pilot was advised to bale out and so followed the abandon aircraft drill: "Open hood, trim to 130mph, undo straps, pull out intercom plug and flip her over and hopefully fall out."

While all the chatter with the pilot of the Spitfire and the Control Tower was going on, the pilot of an Airspeed Oxford flying nearby offered assistance. Given the bearings as to the Spitfire's position, the pilot of the Oxford soon spotted him landing in a field near the Smiths factory and being none the worse for wear the Oxford landed and whipped him back to RAF Defford.

"After all," said Mr Barnard, "the pilot was non other than Defford's Station Commander Group Captain J A MacDonald. He often spoke of his time baling out and being back sitting behind his office desk within 25 minutes - service indeed. This very popular CO of Defford, a Scottish gentleman with an accent which was rather difficult to understand but with a smile that made up for it, especially if we ATC lads gave him a smart salute and on reflection I must admit we often went out of our way to do this to impress."

Mr Barnard's sketch shows the Group Captain well clear of his Spitfire, which embedded itself 20ft into the ground in a field at Coombe Hill. The Airspeed Oxford is shown flying over the Smiths site near the crossroads by the pub and garage.

Mr Barnard said: "In 1941 the employees of the factory subscribed towards a Spitfire and named it Smithfire which served with 145 Squadron. I am sure that somewhere in the wonderful aircraft's cockpit there was a clock with Smiths embossed proudly in black beneath its glass face."