On the 28th April a group of eleven Probus members visited the Bovington Tank Museum arriving five minutes before the doors opened which was a positive sign that this bunch were keen to absorb the sight of all the magnificent machines inside.
When the doors opened and every one followed like sheep to the café only glancing at a few tanks on route.
However once we got back into the museum it was clear that there was a lot of amazing tanks and armoured vehicles to see. The first world war tanks were first to view and we learnt that the Royal Navy had the early machines which were called landships and later changed the name to tanks. The first tank on view was Little Willie – didn’t get the connection as it was a big machine.
The overall display of all the wars which the UK has been involved with were there and some of the names of the manufactures made interesting reading.
There was so much to take in that we all split up and wandered through at our own speed. The one exception was Lindsay Reid who lost contact and raced around the whole site to find the group but had to come back to the beginning. He told us what was ahead of us so he did a very good scouting job.
Having done the first world war section we followed the arrows and walked through a display of first world war trenches which were quite realistic and well constructed.
This led to the WW11 section which was just massive and could take a long time to go around, so its probably worth another visit.
It was a good day out and I recommend it to anyone, particularly a trip for the grand children of a certain age.
