The 2025 airshow season has started nice and early this year as 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of VE Day & VJ Day. When they announced at the start of the year that there would be a flypast over London to commemorate VE Day I immediately wanted to go! Aside from my love of both aircraft and London I wanted to take part in the commemorations for those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for us in World War 2.
So on Bank Holiday Monday I headed up to London, emergency rain poncho in bag as the weather forecast suddenly changed overnight .... thankfully the weather was far better than when I went to the Coronation Flypast back in 2023 .....
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| Gatwick |
I got to London a few hours before the flypast was due to start so decided to visit some of my favourite bookshops for some new reading material.
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| Watkins Books has 2 floors of occult books 😍 |
I also stopped off at The Astrology Shop and my favourite shop Treadwells. With a heaving bag of books I made my way to the flypast.
When I got there I was really excited to make it onto The Mall!
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| TV Crews ready to go |
I felt particularly patriotic in my rain poncho ...
The rain held off and the flypast went ahead! Leading the flypast was of course the Battle Of Britain Memorial Flight crown jewel, the beautiful Lancaster.
With the BBMF's other aircraft taking part in other flypasts around the country the rest of the flypast was comprised of modern RAF types.
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| Voyager & A400M Atlas |
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| Globemaster |
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| Poseidon & Typhoons |
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| Rivet Joint & F35 Lightnings |
The flypast ended with the Red Arrows in formation with 4 Typhoons painting the sky red, white & blue.
You can watch the flypast on my YouTube Channel -
Later in the week Eastbourne Bonfire Society organised a beacon lighting ceremony to mark VE Day.
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| Hilary and me on the Wish Tower slopes |
It was a beautiful evening, perfect for the ceremony -
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| The Moon was also out |
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| The procession |
It was a lovely ceremony to commemorate the bravery of those who came before us and made me even more grateful to have the freedoms that I do and also the importance of continuing to fight for them.
Airshow season proper carries on next month with Trooping The Colour and my first full show of the year at Duxford's summer airshow (the lineup is looking great with the Red Arrows and an Apache display I'm particularly looking forward to).
Love Jen
XxxX
