News & Events
All members are welcome to join events throughout the year including the AGM and Dinner in August - details below.
AGM AND DINNER Friday 29 August 2025
The ATA Association will hold its AGM and Dinner on 29 August at a hotel in the village of Hurley (north of Maidenhead in Berkshire), both of which played an interesting secret role in the Second World War as home to a unit of an American organisation known as the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), similar to the UK's Special Operations Executive (SOE).
We will then be attending the West London Aero Club's Members' Day event at White Waltham aerodrome (home of ATA's wartime HQ) on Saturday 30 August when we will join the Maidenhead Heritage Centre's stand to promote the ATA/ATAA. We will again be holding a short wreath laying ceremony at the ATA memorial located behind the Clubhouse.
Please contact us ASAP if you would like to join or for more details. All members welcome.
Email ataassoc.secretary@gmail.com
AGM AND DINNER
Friday 30 August 2024
We were glad to welcome members to a new venue near Maidenhead in Berkshire for last year's AGM and Dinner.
Introducing our new Chairman
We were also pleased to welcome a new Chairman, Christopher Garrod, while expressing huge thanks to outgoing Chairman Graham Rose for his years of service to the Association.
Christopher is a third-generation pilot, his grandfather flew with the RFC from 1916 and commanded 13 Squadron. Later as Director of Equipment at the Air Ministry he was instrumental in the formation of ATA in his meetings with Gerard d'Erlanger.
Christopher’s father, Peter Garrod, was an ATA F/O pilot from 1942 to 1945. Having been mainly based at White Waltham, Sherburn in Elmet and Ratcliffe, it was at the latter that he met Christopher’s mother, who also served in the ATA as a motor transport driver.
Although awarded an RAF Flying Scholarship at White Waltham in 1968, Christopher decided to follow a civil aviation career and, having then trained at Hamble, he joined BOAC in 1971. At 19, he was probably one of the youngest ever Second Officers. He later flew for Swissair until taking early retirement.
As Chairman of the ATAA, Christopher acknowledges the work of our Committee members and the Maidenhead Heritage Centre in promoting the ATA and looks forward to contributing to that cause.
One project that he has in mind is to fly to as many former ATA pools as he can in one day whilst only using his father's maps, a compass and stopwatch and without using GPS...!
ATA MEMORIAL AT WHITE WALTHAM
We were delighted to be joined at White Waltham by two ATA veterans, now in their late nineties, who were able to jointly lay our wreath 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, who travelled from Southampton with members of an ATA re-enactment group, was at Hamble Ferry Pool.
All Association members are welcome to attend this annual event and enjoy the air displays at White Waltham.
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
