Good Afternoon! I hope you enjoyed last week’s ‘Object of the Week.’ The objects contained within these posts come from the collection at Mount Stewart, National Trust property. There are some interesting things in the collection. From plates to horse riding boots to Lego. Seriously,Lego. We found Lego in the nursery of Mount Stewart.

These object’s were found in one of the wardrobe’s in one of the bedroom’s in Mount Stewart.The bedroom is named ‘Cologne,’ as the bedrooms in Mount Stewart are named after famous European cities. The object’s  possibly belonged to Lord Londonderry, Marquis of Londonderry when he was Secretary of State for Air.

The first object is a pilot’s helmet and headset, with headphones installed. It is made of soft leather lined with wool. The pilot would have listened to WAAF’s at various R.A.F stations giving directions on things such as weather and enemy aircraft positions. A WAAF’ looked like this. Though I personally think that the WRNS had the better uniforms.

The second item that you can see in the main picture, is a R.A.F pilot’s glove. It is made of soft white leather with a soft wool lining. There is a small metal insert placed on a small strip of leather at the top of the glove. This was used to plug into the plane’s heating system when flying on bombing and flying missions. I can’t verify if this is 100% true, but is what I have been told by R.A.F fanatics.

You can see the metal insert to the right hand side of the above picture. The items were in excellent condition and have been stored in the Mount Stewart collection for use at a future date. I now leave you with a video of the items in situ. Oh and a handsome photo of David Niven as an R.A.F pilot in, ‘A Matter of Life and Death.’

 

Video: 2012-10-04 14.07.48