Introduction:
The Autumn of 2006 gave the Association members a rare and much prized opportunity to reconnect with our long forgotten youthful days spent during our time as apprentices at RSAF Enfield.

Following the popular decision taken at the AGM in May to visit the Royal Armouries Museum at Leeds, Barry Mitchell liaised with one of our contacts there, John Henshaw, to make the necessary arrangements.

Despite the location being a considerable distance away from where most of the membership currently live, the enthusiastic response to the offer was very satisfying. Due to the style of the visit which was being planned, our visitor numbers were understandably limited to a maximum of 24 in order to ensure that when split into small groups of 3-4 visitors, each group would have a personal guide.  

The visit included free time to browse around the magnificent collection inside the main museum as well as time for the guided tour of the newly formed National Firearms Centre which is the private collection housing mainly the weapons that used to make up the Pattern Room at RSAF Enfield.

Apart from the weather in Leeds on the day and the incredibly confusing one-way system which winds you around the city while you try to find the Royal Armouries, nothing seemed to dampen the ardour of the members.

Everyone who visited RA Leeds thoroughly enjoyed the day and on behalf of the members we would like to thank all the very knowledgeable staff at Royal Armouries Leeds for their help and informed comment passed on throughout the day.

Author: Mike Cook ('63)

Neither Steve Robson nor I had been to the Royal Armouries at Leeds before, and even with GPS navigation in the car, finding it proved a challenge owing to the enormous amount of building work taking place in the city, and the consequent road closures and diversions.

Once successfully parked in the nearby multi-storey car park, we walked across to the very imposing new six-storey Museum building costing £42.5M, which was opened in 1996 principally to house the national collection of arms and armour from the Tower of London. Finding our meeting point on the first floor reception area proved a further challenge since the stairs only go to floors two and four. Use of the lifts is compulsory!

After chatting with old friends and colleagues, those of us who had arrived earliest were taken on our private visit to the National Firearms Centre. This facility, which is not open to the public, is located in a very secure area and comprises what we knew as the Pattern Room collection, plus a firearms forensic and ballistic examination laboratory. The remaining half of our party stayed for a guided tour of the public Museum.

Access security at the NFC is naturally and understandably very tight, with compulsory examination and logging of photo-identity, temporary confiscation of cameras, and metal body-scanning.

It was breathtaking to finally see the Pattern Room collection beautifully displayed all on one huge, well-lit, air-conditioned, floor. Split into small groups, I was fortunate to join the party taken round by curator John Henshaw, an ex ROF Notts apprentice. I was very impressed by his depth of knowledge, particularly on the development of Browning machine guns. John explained that unpacking of boxes of items moved from Nottingham was still taking place! Also, the collection was significantly larger than we remembered, due to ongoing acquisitions. As always, our visit was too short, and we returned to the main Museum thinking that two or three days in the NFC alone would be needed even to begin to do it justice. The staff at the NFC went to some trouble to host our visit. They deserve our thanks. It was a great privilege to be able to view the collection in its superb new home. It is in extremely good hands.

Following lunch in the very pleasant and popular Museum restaurant, it was our turn to look around the public Museum. This too is breathtaking, and one would need several days to see everything. Those who left early to rescue soggy shoppers missed a real treat! (Okay - I admit to my unplanned early departure to collect my rain-soaked wife and sister - Gen Sec)

The "Hall of Steel" is an octagonal tower, six storeys high, hung with 2,500 guns, swords, breastplates, etc. - absolutely stunning. Five major galleries house some 5,000 other exhibits covering every conceivable use of arms through the ages - hunting, warfare, self defence, medieval tournaments, etc. Products of RSAF are well represented. Several important national treasures can be seen, including a suit of armour made for an Indian elephant in 1600!

John Henshaw had told us that items from the NFC (Pattern Room) collection are sometimes exhibited in the main Museum, and I was pleased to see an example of John M Browning's Model 1895 "Potato Digger" machine gun and Gabbett-Fairfax's awesome Mars self-loading pistol on public display. Even without access to the NFC, a visit the Royal Armouries Collection at Leeds is a must for anyone even slightly interested in small arms. I have already been back since. It is one of the world's great museums.

In these days of political correctness and hostility to "gun culture" in the UK, it is heartening to find an organisation dedicated to the preservation, display and celebration of the history of firearms. The Royal Armouries (with others) have already had to fight off proposals from Europe for all guns held in museums to be deactivated.

I regard the Collection at Leeds as "our own" national museum. I am so impressed with what they are doing that I have become a "Friend of the Royal Armouries". I urge everyone in the Association to do so too. It costs just £25 a year (£20 for OAPs).

Author: Steve Robson ('62)

It is not often that you are given the opportunity to lay eyes on one of the nation's greatest secret collections. Because of the nature of such a collection you would rightly feel that even James Bond might be jealous of such a chance. Within the collection there lies a huge variety of weapons ranging from a cunningly concealed .22 pistol in a ring that would grace the average 'Goldfinger' to a multi-barrelled Gatling gun and rapid fire grenade launcher.

You may have guessed that I speak of the National Firearms Centre, the focus of the Autumn Technical Visit for our honourable ex-Apprentices Association.

Our party was divided into manageable groups of 3 or 4 and each disappeared to the far corners of this emporium. My guide, Mark, led us first to see how a weapon of the past had the hitting power of 3 elephants. Here he showed us a metal plate that carried a variety of dents identified as 9mm ammunition damage fired from various pistols, also a neat hole created by a military weapon leaving a neat copper ring scraped off as the round passed through. None of these compared to the 1" diameter hole blasted through the steel plate by the centuries old weapon. It clearly showed that transfer of energy is what it is all about - even from a relatively low velocity .57" calibre long musket.

The next exhibit was the new MP7, the follow-on from the famous Heckler and Koch MP5 much favoured by security forces and regularly on show at our national airports casually cradled by a member of our armed police. A few moments were spent studying another sub-machine gun which had an unusual magazine that lay along the top of the barrel with the round having to pirouette down into the chamber - very neat with no long magazines to catch out the unwary!

The fondly remembered EM2 was a must and then at our request the 'non standard' weapons:

Exhibit 1: An amazing sub-machine gun which, though crude in finish, had obviously been made by a capable but misguided individual somewhere in a home workshop. It puts a distinctly uncomfortable new meaning to DIY. How did the Police manage to get hold of this weapon? Answer - the criminal tried to sell one of his 3 production models down at the local boozer when he was short of readies - duh??

The 'ring' gun that I mentioned in the first paragraph was also shown to us in its special secure apprentice-proof showcase. It had a manually pulled back firing pin and all in about one inch.

Some of the other weapons seen were modified 'collectors' pistols reamed out and barrelled as needed. There were even modified survival flare guns used by the military, again barrelled for small calibre ammunition and toy cap guns modified to fire real ammunition which could only be described as quite obviously equally dangerous to both user and target alike. One such 'gun' when cocked could not be un-cocked therefore walking around with this type of weapon in your pocket could become dangerous for your descendants. (Think about it).

All too soon our time was up and we returned back into the main museum area in the Royal Armouries for lunch. After lunch, the afternoon was spent browsing the displays on just one half of the 5 floors which covered military weapons from before the Boer War through to World War II.

The main collection is astounding for something outside the specialist NFC and really anyone interested in this subject would need 2 or 3 days to do justice to this museum.

Whilst it was a long drive from the 'Deep South', the experiences of the day were unique and certainly well worth the effort: A very good time was had by all.

Author: Ray Tuthill ('52)

It was a wet and murky Thursday morning when we assembled in Leeds to re-acquaint ourselves with one of our favourite haunts, the Pattern Room, now much travelled and relocated to The Royal Armouries as the National Firearms Centre. Being our most remote visit ever and so far from London, I had wondered what the attendance would be like, but we had a 'full house' apart from a couple who failed to make it on the day (Tom Johnson and Geoffrey Organ). We split into two parties to tour the Royal Armouries, which is open to the public, and the NFC which is most definitely not, swapping over after a congenial lunch with old friends in the Royal Armouries cafeteria.

Most were eager to get to NFC, but I think those of us who visited the Royal Armouries first, probably did best as we were enthusiastically conducted around by Graeme Rimer their Academic Director, who unfortunately had another commitment in the afternoon.

We started at the "Hall of Steel" an octagonal tower within the staircase to the upper floors and lined with some thousands of assorted weapons, including pikes, bayonets, pistols, muskets and rifles etc which had once languished unseen in store. The arrangement is a notable work of art and had only just reopened after 6 months of specialist cleaning and refurbishment. Viewed from below it is quite spectacular and the exhibits can also be seen at closer quarters from windows at each level.

Then to the galleries... A couple of hours was only long enough for a superficial look at the range of exhibits and to get an appreciation of the overall scope. It is excellent and deserves very much longer to do it justice. I had not previously appreciated the breadth of the collection, assuming it all related to warfare - wrong! That is but one section and it also embraces hunting, sporting, oriental weaponry and armour.

An excellent feature is the inclusion of a small indoors arena and stage area (there is also a jousting arena outside) where actors perform presentations illustrating weaponry over the ages and then, after the performance, 'come out' of their characters to talk with the audience at close quarters and allow them to handle some of the weapons. A party of schoolchildren were enjoying and no doubt learning a great deal from one of the presentations whilst we were there.

Then to the Pattern Room - sorry, NFC, but it will always be The Pattern Room to us! It was a relief and a treat to find it still intact and settled at last in its splendid new home after all the turmoil about its future when Nottingham closed. There was a 'step change' in security arrangements between Enfield and Nottingham, which was pretty impregnable, but it has now gone another further step, sadly, a necessary sign of the times. The NFC is separate from the main Royal Armouries building, to which the public have access, and is located together with the national firearms forensic service in a new purpose built building that must rival Fort Knox for security. Bert Woodend never demanded to see our passports before he would let us in!

It is now all on a single level with enough space to have nearly all the collection out and accessible, but still with an air of familiarity created by the rifles and muskets stacked in their original racks from Enfield. We split into groups of 3 or 4 to be shown round by John Henshaw (Association 'Friend' member), Mark and Peter and one of the joys of the Pattern Room is that there are always new things to see as well as old favourites.

The most spectacular without any doubt has to be the 'diamond pistol' in its special protective pouch and only just arrived at NFC. A middle Eastern prince ordered a high quality and fully functional modern pistol to be decorated with a dazzling array of gems, indeed it is almost wholly covered with them like the sequins on a ballgown - except that these are all cut and polished diamonds! He then failed to take delivery, leaving the UK specialist jeweller with quite a problem that got infinitely worse when the post-Dunblane legislation made it illegal. After years of negotiation, agreement was recently reached regarding the amount of compensation the Government would pay leading to its arrival at NFC.

Other memorable items were the armchair made entirely of Kalashnikovs cut and welded together, which is actually surprisingly comfortable, and the double-ended BREN barrel, the purpose of which evoked much speculation as our guide, Mark, had only come across it himself for the first time that morning. It is chambered at both ends and externally parallel without any of the usual profiling except for the gas block. One end showed signs of some significant use. Subsequent reflection does stir some distant memories of Bert Woodend having shown it to us before, but a long time ago!

Perhaps the most fascinating however was to see the growing collection of criminal weapons. They ranged from a very capably engineered sub machine gun, fabricated from standard commercial steel sections and with a flavour of STEN about it. (He made 4 and got caught when he started selling them in a pub - the Police have recovered 3 and would dearly like to find the last one!) Then there were the reactivated 'deacs' done with varying degrees of engineering skill, some quite brilliantly and all as lethal as they were originally.

The most amazing however were the crude conversions of replicas and toy guns. It beggars belief how anyone in their right mind could ever contemplate firing a live round from a die-cast toy cap gun bored out and lined, for a barrel, with a piece of thinwall copper tube (micro-bore central heating?), but it goes to show what idiotic 'nutters' some criminals really are - it would be as lethal to the user as to the target! It also graphically illustrates the difficulties and mental anguish faced by the Police when confronted with something that looks even remotely like a gun and which can result in mistaken shootings.

Very many thanks are due to all our guides, Graeme, John, Mark and Peter for their time and explanations and for making it such a super day for us.