Endangered Species

The naturally aspirated, manual gearbox performance car is a rare beast these days. Thankfully, a few hardy souls are still flying the flag

- Adam Towler

Funny how a rustle of leaves can deafen when there’s complete silence. Green foliage bursts from any and every exposed crevice, crack and gulley, frenzied in growth now that it’s completely unrestricted by human hands. Decay, rot, subsidence, erosion; slowly, but with a sense of crushing inevitability, nature is reclaiming what was once its own.

RAF Upwood’s days are most definitely numbered. New housing is well under the wire, encroaching on and then systematically consuming its core buildings that once stood neat and proud. This is ground that would have shaken to the roar of Rolls-Royce Merlins slung under the wings of De Havilland Mosquitos and Avro Lancasters, and latterly the thunder of its Avon jet engines on the groundbreaking English Electric Canberra bomber, but now there’s simply the distant rat-tat-tat of a heavy pneumatic drill, thumping into the ground to create foundations for three-bed semis.