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Torbay Aircraft Museum

Cover of a jigsaw of Torbay Aircraft Museum

What is the connection between the 1960s pop music TV show Ready, Steady, Go! and a long-lost aircraft museum in Devon?

The answer is Keith Fordyce, an ex-RAF serviceman who co-presented the show from 1963, and famously asked the Beatles if they thought they had a future. In 1971 he began restoring old aircraft, and later established the museum in Torbay. Amongst other aircraft the collection included replicas of the Spitfire and Hurricane. The museum closed in the late 1980s and the collection was dispersed.

One reply on “Torbay Aircraft Museum”

We as a family visited this museum in the late 70s,it was very good and Keith Fordyce passed us by with a friendly hello when we were there. I remember that he had a test bouncing bomb on display which I made sure as a kid that I physically touched. Sad that the Museum is no longer there, but happy that Keith managed to save so many things that live on in other such collections.

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