Spitfire flypast as Goldfish Club members in Shropshire reunion
The Goldfish Club has only one rule for membership, you have to have ditched a flying machine in a stretch of water to join. And this year it was in Shropshire for its annual reunion.
The club met at the Telford Hotel and Golf Resort this weekend. Stuart Clay, from Preston, is the club's social secretary, for events said it had been a great weekend.
He said: "The highlight was probably the flypast by the Spitfire on Saturday, but we also had a trip out to the RAF Cosford Museum and the formal dinner on Saturday evening.
"We have world-wide membership of 450 members and 39 of them attended the reunion this year, including a man from Seattle, who just came to England for the weekend."Our members range in age from their thirties to veterans of World War Two, which means the choice of venue is important, as we don't want our members to have to walk too far.
"The Telford Hotel has been fantastic, because it has rooms next to the restaurant and bar, and the function room we used was only a few yards away."
Mr Clay became of member of the club in 1995, when he was part of the seven-man crew taking a Nimrod for a post-maintenance test flight in Scotland.
He said: "One of the engine's caught fire and the pilot realised he wasn't going to get back to the airfield - so decided to ditch in the Moray Firth.
"We were lucky as it was a lovely, warm summer's day and we were picked up by helicopter only 25 minutes after we went into the water."
