writes Barry Shurlock. But a new investigation by a museum curator has come up with a completely different story. It turns out that it was in fact a British training aircraft which crashed near the pond after losing a flap and climbing vertically out of control. The pilot, who died in the crash, was in the process of obtaining his wings two months before the Battle of Britain. The sleuthing has been done by former Observer Lieutenant Neville Cullingford, who served for many years in the Royal Observer Corps and is now Honorary Curator of its Museum. Outlining his discoveries, he said: “I’ve always been fascinated by the story about the crash, which was thought to involve an enemy aircraft, as reported in the Echo in 1972. I started to ask local residents who had lived in the area during WWII if they had any recollections of this fighter crashing into Fisher’s Pond.