News & Events
All members are welcome to join events throughout the year including the 2026 AGM and Dinner in September - details below.
AGM AND DINNER
Friday 4 September 2026
The ATA Association will hold its AGM and Dinner on Friday 4 September at The Olde Bell in the Hurley, north of Maidenhead in Berkshire. All members are very welcome to join this event.
The pub has an interesting wartime history:
"Famous guests at The Olde Bell included Sir Winston Churchill, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Colonel Elliot Roosevelt, son of the wartime President, who were all visiting Ladye Place mansion, next to the church, which was being used as a secret U.S. intelligence base prior to The Normandy Landings."
On Saturday 5 September we will attend the West London Aero Club Members' Day event at White Waltham Airfield - home of the ATA's wartime HQ - joining the Maidenhead Heritage Centre's stand to promote the ATA and ATA Association.
As we do each year, we will hold a wreath laying ceremony at the ATA memorial behind the Clubhouse. This is a fitting opportunity to commemorate all those who flew with the ATA throughout the Second World War.
Please email ataassoc.secretary@gmail.com to find out more and book your place.
Spitfire Girls Tour 2026
Committee member Caroline Speirs (centre), whose mother Rita Baines flew with the ATA, met the cast of Spitfire Girls in Buxton in March. Caroline will be giving a post-show talk at the Octagon Theatre in Bolton on 28 May. More details here.
The play from Tilted Wig Productions made its debut in March 2025 at the MAST Mayflower Theatre in Southampton, and was attended by a number of ATAA members. Candida Adkins, daughter of ATA pilot Jackie Moggridge gave a post-show talk about her mother's aviation career highlights, with poems from Sisters in Spitfires by Alison Hill (below).
ATA MEMORIAL AT WHITE WALTHAM
In 2024, we were delighted to be joined at White Waltham by two ATA veterans, now in their late nineties, who laid our wreath together during the short service that has become a valued annual tradition.
They had both served as teenage Air Training Corps Cadets, one at the White Waltham Ferry Pool and the other was at Hamble Ferry Pool.
Our Secretary also continued his tradition of closing the ceremony with a new tribute in verse:
We stand here each year
And may shed a tear
For those that we knew
If only a few
They made an impression
One we’ll never forget
Nor will their action
In times of regret
Be lost to historians
In terms let us bet
Won’t fail to mention
We owe them a debt
So our wreath duly laid
And tribute thus made
We’re sure to return
Hoping others will learn
Of what’s left to remember
Not just in November
We’re glad to be here
Words familiar to hear
And vow to return
To repeat them next year
Rest assured, They will not be Forgotten
