The ‘Festival of Flight’ photo exhibition opened at the Royal International Air Tattoo on the 14th July 2006, one of the major airshows in the UK with over 30,000 visitors on each day of the weekend. The story tells of the development of airpower, its many different uses today, how people fought major obstacles, including racial prejudice, to win their right to fly and how it links people across the world. It opened with a backdrop of the images of Garuda, the Eastern bird-god, alongside real eagles, and a legend about the most powerful being ever created, a story over 2000 years old but with messages as relevant today as it was at the time.
Each Heartstone exhibition aims to involve many different groups in itsstaging with the photodocumentary being the linking element and the main ‘draw’ which, in keeping with all Heartstone stories, is never staged, posed or manipulated but aims to tell a true story, ‘moments of time’ that really happened. In this case, invitations from RAF air bases around the UK for ‘behind the scenes’ access meant Heartstone photographer, Nick Sidle, was able to fly with the key frontline squadrons to tell their story and take audiences as close as possible to see the world from the cockpit. With a centrally placed marquee funded by Rolls Royce, the exhibition was packed on both days of the airshow – at least, that is, when the aircraft were not flying!
The RIAT exhibition comprised over 300 images and was mounted with the help of Air Cadets.They were subsequently greeted by the Asst. Chief of the Air Staff, AVM Chris Moran, who became the first special guest to the exhibition on Friday 14th.
The exhibition was ‘brought to life’ with pilots, aircrew and groundcrew all of whom were featured in the photostory. This included Tornado pilots, Red Arrows pilots, USAF pilots and Jilu Miah and Nozmul Miah, two young Muslim men from Brick Lane Youth Development Association (BLYDA) in Tower Hamlets, East London who had flown gliders for the ‘First Flight’ part of the exhibition. It was a high point of the event when 12 young men also from BLYDA joined them as additional presenters and hosts for the exhibition on the first day of the weekend.
Heartstone was privileged to welcome the Chief of the Air Staff, Sir GlennTorpy, who subsequently became the latest Host for ‘Festival of Flight’ following Sir Jock Stirrup, and Lady Torpy as special guests. They were both welcomed by Sitakumari and the young hosts for the exhibition.
The hope that the exhibition would become the meeting point for different groups started to become a reality over the two days. For the BLYDA group, meeting with pilots of the Tornado squadrons and USAF squadrons featured in the exhibition, to be able to talk honestly and openly about being a pilot on a bombing mission into Afghanistan, as these pilots had undertaken, took on special significance. The success of this encounter was visible when an invitation was extended to the pilots to go to the BLYDA section of the exhibition and talk to Jilu and Nozmul about their glider flight experience and to the other young people present. This led to an invitation to the BLYDA group to go and see one of the fast jets flown by the pilots and then onto a Chinook helicopter to meet its pilot.
Abu Mumin, the senior manager who came with the group, said: ‘It gave the members a chance to talk to people about careers and break down some perceptions they had about the air force. It was a chance for other people to talk to young people from Tower Hamlets and lose some of their perceptions about them. They were talking to the pilots and one of them came from Forest Gate. A lot of them came back determined to succeed….’
Another of those present stated, ‘…it was great to feel everyone there was an ‘insider’ rather than anything else, explaining our roles as equals – it really does feel good when this happens….’
In a period when Islamophobia was high across the UK with tensions towards anyone in the Armed Forces similarly high from those in the communities the young men had come from, the RIAT experience was an exceptional and remarkable encounter. The final success of what had happened was felt when the young men extended an invitation to the pilots they had met to come to an event with their own community in Tower Hamlets. Clearly, a lasting friendship had been formed.
This opportunity to see a frontline fast jet at close quarters led to even more questions. Here is what Nozmul, then aged 19 who had selected the group from BLYDA, said about their experience of the day:
‘Sitakumari invited us to RIAT, the Royal International Air Tattoo where ‘Festival of Flight’ had its own tent. A lot of people from my club wanted to go because no one had ever been to an airshow before. At the end only 15 peer workers and 3 staff went. It was a hard decision but we had limited space. What made us want to go to RIAT was because it was an event that we couldn’t miss and watching fast jets flying past that fast that close was something everyone was looking forward to. When we got there it was weird because we were probably the only Muslims there, but we had a fantastic time. The airfield was massive, it was breathtaking.
We got to meet the Chief of the RAF, the Assistant Chief, the Red Arrows crew and the US pilots which was interesting because of the war in Iraq. We spoke to the US pilot for a couple of hours and asked him so many questions but he didn’t mind and answered them as accurately as he could.
What made this trip special is the fact that everyone was very friendly towards us, I think that despite everything that is going on, they were civilised.
What I achieved personally from all this and meeting so many different people has made me a different person. Without Heartstone, none of this would have been possible and I would like to thank them and hope to continue with our partnership in the future…..’
