Laying Up Ceremony 07

Wing Commander Kidd returned to the subject of presentations (and not allowing things to end up in boxes in the corner of dark warehouses), and finally returned the Bromet Trophy to the 208 Squadron Association. As everyone knew, the Trophy was awarded annually for excellence in the air and was originally presented to the Squadron in 1985 by the then Squadron Leader Wright. The President, now Air Marshal Wright, gratefully accepted the Bromet Trophy back on behalf of the 208 Squadron Association.

To conclude, Wing Commander Kidd reiterated what he had said many times during his time in command, and it had never been more true than as he stood there at its final moment:

‘It has been an honour and privilege to command such a fine Squadron
with such a vibrant and strong Association.
It is with great sadness that I now relinquish that command,
but the Squadron and the esprit de corps will stay with me forever.’

After the applause had died down, the next to speak was Air Marshal Sir Rob Wright, the president of the Naval Eight / 208 Squadron Association:

Following the return of the Bromet Trophy by Wing Commander Kidd, the President remarked that it had been the first time ever that he had been presented with the Trophy! It did not seem like 31 years since the then Chairman of the Association, Ben Laite (who was present at the Lunch) had asked him to take on the project of producing the Trophy to commemorate the standards, the very high standards, that Sir Geoffrey Bromet had set as the first CO of the Squadron. He repeated the story that he had told at the Centenary Dining-Out Night at RAF Valley that the Trophy had been manufactured in Camberley by a silversmith who produced a plastic replica of what was required and said ‘that will be £550’. Well, the budget that Ben had given him was £500, so he asked the silversmith to chop 2 centimetres off the feet! He presumed, however, that this was not a budget methodology that should be recommended to the AOC, who might have applied it to the Squadron’s aircraft!

As Wing Commander Kidd had explained, the Trophy had been presented to the Squadron every year for excellence in the air. The President presumed that all Association members would be pleased that it had managed to maintain that spirit and those standards, which had so clearly been maintained by the Squadron right up until its 100th year. It had enabled the maintenance of a very close professional and personal link between the Association and the Squadron and he wished to pay tribute to the Squadron, past and present, but particularly to the group present at the Lunch for the support they had shown the Association over the years by coming to the reunions in October.

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