Great British Road Journeys - Hertfordshire - Hertford to Tring Ep. 23

[@spitfire1962]

As much as I enjoy your humour Jon, I am glad to see you paid due respect to the 1914-1918 small disagreement.

[@NonsensicalSpudz]

was quite the disagreement aswell

[@Jamiewaldie1992]

That's the problem with war, it's not about who's right, it's about who's left 😞

[@paulketchupwitheverything767]

Those training trenches looked poignantly similar to the remains of the real things that I've seen at Vimy Ridge and Verdun.

[@oliabid-price4517]

'Places like this make you think...' Yes. Yes they do...

[@LM42]

Not been the best week tbh

[@GamMngitSssEmoTionaL5953]

"But Sadly not hemal" "& Hippos like your mum" 😐🤣 ohhh that was wicked sweet awesome 🤣

[@TheChipmunk2008]

sadly not hemel made me snort painfully

[@CharityAngelSpectrum]

I'd just taken a mouthful of drink at "but sadly not Hemel". That was an error.

[@Rv1333]

I had to rewind it to make sure he said hippos like your mum 😂 this guys mental

[@GamMngitSssEmoTionaL5953]

@Rv1333 haha think you ment to say at the end "this guys mental wicked sweet Awesome " 🤣 but yeah I had to rewind as when I first watched it like wait what did he say what I thought he said nahh surely not hahah nope he did indeed 🤣

[@The_BenboBaggins]

I love how you go from a beautiful and poignant moment to a your mum joke without missing a beat - pure class!

[@tidgney]

😂😂😂😂

[@marcwaller3657]

If anyone is interested in aircraft and wants to find out more about Dehavilland, the excellent dehavilland aircraft museum is a few miles down the road next to the M25 at Salisbury Hall near London Colney which was the companies original R&D site. They have a KZbin account too.

[@MichaelAbbott-sl2di]

"your mum" jokes. Now that is wicked, sweet, awesome 😅😅😅

[@andymerrett]

He certainly managed to slip that one in surreptitiously...

[@madpixie2]

Loved it!

[@krisirk]

Caught me off guard. Had to rewind to confirm. 😂

[@CableWrestler]

*Hwicked

[@Alan_Stinchcombe]

04:51 "this was a time when jet-engined aircraft were really starting to take off so a proper runway was needed." 😂

[@kgbgb3663]

How many people said out loud "... and land"?

[@Jerrymouse79]

@@kgbgb3663I thought “bah dum, tsss” instead 😂

[@SportyMabamba]

@@kgbgb3663they haven’t left one up there yet!

[@highpath4776]

@@kgbgb3663 It was a comet, you needed a bucket for the bits half the time rather than a runway

[@kgbgb3663]

@@highpath4776 Cruel but funny. I remember as a boy having a book about the Comet and how it was going to completely revolutionise air travel. (I don't think there was a second edition.) Unusually, the book was in landscape format, with proportion about 1 to 2. Which, if you think about it, is _really_ sensible for a book about airliners. I don't think I have ever seen that format used again.

[@grim-upnorth]

The structure behind the trees is a Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range Station (VOR). Its a type of short-range radio navigation system for aircraft, enabling aircraft with a receiving unit to determine its position and stay on course by receiving radio signals transmitted by a network of fixed ground radio beacons. EDIT - After some replies to this comment I decided to dig deeper and actually I found out that this was labelled on old maps as a VDF or VHF Direction Finder. Its a ground based radio aid that consists of a directional antenna system and a VHF radio receiver, tuned to the operating frequency of an air traffic services unit. Thus, when a transmission is received from an aircraft, the VDF provides the direction that transmission came from. Whilst very similar to VOR, the VDF requires an operator on a voice channel to pass the information to the aviator. In effect, VOR is a more sophisticated VDF. Physically they both consist of multiple directional antennas mounted in a radial pattern around a central brick and/or concrete box style structure, and are commonly mistaken for each other.

[@Mike-H_UK]

Thanks Lewis!

[@jeremywilliams5107]

Are the cows necessary to correct functioning?

[@alan-freeman]

I would actually say this is a receiving only direction finder. I am ex RAF airfield engineer and was taught how to maintain these.

[@Madmark50484]

In road transport VOR means vehicle off road.

[@Goproflying]

All the VOR facilities I've seen are usually quite a bit bigger than this, however this may be all that's left of it. Everything I can find online simply says it's an airfield ground station.

[@128daz]

Anyone else wave at John at the start of the video as he waves hello...? Just me? Fair enough...

[@AdrianDowthwaite]

4:20 that excellent series on motorways, was indead excellent.

[@brianartillery]

'Tring' always makes me think of a bicycle bell. I have successfully avoided Hatfield for many years. Last time I went there, the De Havilland company buildings were still there, and there was a De Havilland Mosquito as a gate guardian. On the day of the Buncefield explosion, I was at work at Ipswich docks. I was getting ready to go home after a nightshift, and, at about 6 am, there was a crack, and something rattled the windows of the gatehouse I was in. A few moments later, I got a phonecall from the dock radar control, which was about a mile away from me, and was asked if anyone was letting off fireworks, as something had rattled their windows. Nobody was letting anything off locally, but about 90 miles away, all hell had broken loose. Somewhere, there is an ancient logbook with my note about the odd noise in it. Tidy video as always, Jon and a lot of fun. Nice one. 👍👍👍

[@kgbgb3663]

It always reminds me of George Stevenson arguing that The Great Western Railway was pointless, because his railway could build a branch to Bristol from Tring.

[@kevinrayner5812]

I live about 5 miles from Hemel and whilst I don't recall any large explosion I must have subconsciously heard it as I woke up. I do recall the bedroom door rattling. All I could think of was that a plane has crashed near by. Of course De Havillands still partly exists in the form of Harry Potter World at Leavesden the ex De Havilland engine works. Where I did my appriceship and about 10 years after me Bradley Walsh. I believe he started at the Rolls Royce social club there.

[@fredericksaxton3991]

Greatest post war fire/explosion in Europe. I have a friend who was due to go on a course the next day in the office complex next door. Lucky escape.

[@kevinrayner5812]

Some of the local residents with damaged houses had to wait a very long time so get compensation and get their houses repaired.

[@CharityAngelSpectrum]

"Tring" must always be pronounced like a ringing phone (old school style-y).

[@glenjones6980]

The almost apologetic look after the jet engine gag was sublime sir!

[@davidharris3264]

9:18 Jon I appreciate your pause for thought we cannot let the buggers get away with it Remembrance is all important

[@andymckenna1262]

Sadly we forget the lessons of history

[@Stephen_Lafferty]

I like how Jon can go from 9:15 comment on WWI survivability rates to 10:18 Mum jokes! Quality documentary making :D

[@AlpakaWhacker]

Nearly spat out my tea XD

[@carltaylor6452]

For me Hatfield is notable for the road sign on the A1(M) leaving London - 'Hatfield and the North' - which meant 1970s holidays in places like Scarborough. It's also the name of a very charming 1970s Canterbury scene jazz-influenced rock band, whose music I enjoy very much.

[@jamesrichardson476]

Great band :) Sadly, all the road signs seem to say "The North. Hatfield", nowadays, but that doesn't stop me sticking my copy of The Rotter's Club on the stereo from time to time. On a separate note, as a kid I was at school with Jamie McMullen of the brewing family. Fascinating, eh?

[@MCMikey69691]

Yeah. Mussed the opportunity for some Cock of the North jokes there...

[@ap9970]

You went to St Albans and didn't visit Norman Stanley Fletcher's temporary accommodation 😮

[@itsmedickie]

The dressed up flees are the best bit in the Tring museum.

[@chrisparsons949]

Hatfield is, perhaps, well known for 2 things... 3:32 .... That and the large rail crash in 2000

[@paulfidler3710]

Please visit the de havilland museum. The volunteers are so incredibly helpful and passionate! Really is worth it.

[@peteryoung4957]

I live in Hertfordshire and recognise all the places. I could think of far worse places than Hemel and yes I agree with you Jon, St Albans is a traffic nightmare .

[@honeybadger6493]

As a Hatfield resident I must say you were very generous with describing how much of a dump this place is

[@chriscohlmeyer4735]

Thanks Jon for the thoughts on that first small 1914-1918 disagreement. On the day this video was released an over one hundred year old desire was completed in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador with the repatriation from France and internment of an unknown Newfoundlander at the local War Memorial. During the times of those two small disagreements Newfoundland was a separate country, in 1949 Canada joined Newfoundland. In a consession to Canada, in Newfoundland and Labrador the morning of July 1st is Memorial Day while in the afternoon it is Canada Day.

[@PaulMcElligott]

The DeHavilland plant was the site of one of the more unique episodes of the second small disagreement. A once and future career criminal named Eddie Chapman was working as a double agent for MI5, and he had been tasked by the Germans with blowing up that factory. Apparently, they found Mosquitoes very annoying and wanted to stop their production. With the help of a magician named Jasper Maskelyne, they dressed up the building to look from the air or from a distance like it had been heavily damaged. The Germans were sufficiently impressed with Chapman’s “sabotage” that they awarded him the Iron Cross. By the way, before this, Maskelyne had a hand into tricking Erwin Rommel into expecting an attack from the wrong direction at the Second Battle of El Alamein.

[@type17]

4:40 When De Havilland left this building, it was used by the University of Hertfordshire Art and Design department from '94-onwards - I studied Industrial Design there, and we got to sit at the original De Havilland drawing boards in our class area. There were still some old design drawings left behind in old filing cabinets - it was very inspirational to study Design there. Hi to our tutor, Mike Goatman.

[@harshadvjoshi]

Hi John, I have not been having a good week. Work shit, sick child, unwell me.. But you hippo comment just made my day.. Thank you so very much for that. You are one of my best seen channels. Thank you for lifting me.

[@Saint_Dan132]

oh its the shenanigan's guy we like him

[@simonrayner3110]

John, you should of gone to Hatfield House, which is where Queen Elizabeth the first was staying when she became Queen. There's an oak tree where she was sitting under when she was told she was Queen. I used to work farming this land a few years ago, and although the oak tree is still there and open to the public it is not the original tree, the remainder of which is still growing in a secluded part of the estate which is not open to the public, even I who worked there wasn't allowed anywhere near it. All the fields on this estate had names like "druids bottom" and the like apart from one, which was called "search lights" This massive field (not open to the public) was where they tested a new invention in the first slight disagreement called the tank. Next to the field are dug western front trenches to test these beasts, which are now overgrown with huge trees. I felt privileged to be able to explore them. All part of the Lord "Bob's your uncle" (although that's another story) Salisbury estate. And yes, I did meet him and his son and they were both pompous arses.

[@keithposter5543]

They are. My dad lives in Old Hatfield and says the same.

[@kevinrayner5812]

"you should of gone to Hatfield House, which is where Queen Elizabeth the first was staying when she became Queen." Is that the old house next to the current one as I thought Hatfield House, the bigger one, was Jacobian?

[@Jacob-jo4px]

Forgot to mention the De Havilland airfield site was used as the set for saving private Ryan

[@nikcodling]

I grew up in Tring, went to primary school in Berko, and secondary school in Hemel, so really liked this one. I’m also an aviation enthusiast with a bit of a fascination with old airfields, so I’m glad you covered DeHaviland at Hatfield, thank you!

[@ridleyscurry2480]

Never change your sense of humor Jon

[@willtricks9432]

The nutter was short of a Zebra for his coach and also needed a Horse to lead the Zebras which are not suited to domestication so he painted stripes on a horse. Within the Museum you will find a case with two dressed fleas, really worth a look. Cheers

[@Ian-xq4rt]

Whilst talking Hatfield, the area around the old airfield was used in a scene from 'Saving Private Ryan', remember seeing it from a distance

[@phil_p]

I live 20 miles from Hemel and that explosion woke me up!

[@richardthomasmillican3980]

I lived on Surrey/Hampshire border and it woke me up

[@andykilvington1651]

I thought our roof had collapsed (in St Albans). Glad to see Jon back on his home patch again.

[@GRAHAMAUS]

Berko Castle is where the Norman Conquest basically ended. Everyone knows about the Battle of Hastings where it started, but Berko is where it ended, and we've been French ever since.

[@jimmydesouza4375]

German ever since. The Normans were Germans. They just also happened to conquer France and Scandinavia a couple of centuries before they conquered us.

[@davidioanhedges]

@@jimmydesouza4375 The Normans were Northmen - i.e. Norse - Scandinavian ...

[@davidioanhedges]

It's where the last person of any other power at the time surrendered to William ... the Archbishop of York, the castle was to retain and defend the route north

[@jimmydesouza4375]

@@davidioanhedges Scandinavians are Germans. You're thinking of Germany the nation (I assume), whereas I am talking about ethno groups tracked via linguistics and culture. Norse are part of the "North Germanic" group which split off from the Germanic branch of Indo-European Language/Culture. Additionally the Normans were not just Norse, they were a mixture of Norse, Frank and Gaul.

[@davidioanhedges]

@@jimmydesouza4375 They are Germans or even Germanic in no way - unless you believe certain German leaders from the 1940's ...all heavily debunked - Scandinavian culture is distinct from Germanic culture The Normans had been in the area for long enough to intermarry, and spoke Norman French, they were a mixture

[@mouflon7538]

The structure behind the aircraft at 5:05 still exists and is now a David Lloyds

[@t_mandry]

Berko mentioned 💪

[@keithposter5543]

Hatfield - stay to the east of the station and all is fine. There's even a famous house that should be mentioned in any guidebook worth its salt 😉

[@martindotleach]

Fun fact about the old Hatfield Aerodrome: Some scenes from Band of Brothers (you know, that film which documented a small part of the second disagreement) where filmed there. Saw many changes to that area during my time there, especially during 2001 onwards when it became more commercialized (Ocado warehouses etc). WItnessed the old hanger being converted into the David Lloyd gym (or whatever it is now).

[@Clockwork_Planet]

I will always - ALWAYS - watch all the way through the wavy pull back at the end titles until the licks at the end of the music. It's compelling.

[@chrisblay]

Interesting fact, my Uncle worked for the De Havilland Aircraft Company. All that exists of them now, is a museum in St Albans.

[@mrc7478]

Thanks Chris.

[@1anwrang13r]

There are still a few buildings left. The original control tower and its adjacent hanger are there (albeit converted into a gym), and the art deco gatehouse is now a KFC.

[@MisterHughie]

Could have diverted off the A4251 between Berkhamsted and Tring and popped to the village of Aldbury, gorgeous little village with a central duck pond and featured in the Avengers with Diana Rigg many times, fab video as always Jon, thank you 🙏

[@platypushatstand]

I did 5yrs penance in Hatfield uni 92-97. To alleviate the problem me and my housemates would drive the back roads to Hertford via Wild Hill, Essendon & Bayfordbury. Our ‘landlord’ Steve, studying for a Construction degree (his dad bought him a cheapo end-of-terrace house: 93 Garden Avenue, Hatfield) got caught out by the second of the two 90 deg bends in Essendon going North on a wet day, took out some bloke’s fence and narrowly missed writing his mums Golf off. A lesson for the kids of today: when driving too fast for your own skills, always wait until you’ve unwound the steering wheel from full lock to straight ahead *before* burying the throttle in 2nd gear, that way you won’t under steer off the road in heavy rain and narrowly miss a very heavy and thick fence post…

[@Crazy_Steve_Sr]

At 5:50 that's the remains of a counterpoise topped shelter for a CVOR (Conventional VHF Omnidirectional Range) or, more likely, a HRDF (High Resolution Direction Finder). I install and maintain; ILS, DME, NDB, VOR, DF and other aircraft navigation aids/beacons, if you'd like any more info. Sweet video as always, thanks very much for your hard work!

[@arthurbarfield1037]

Jon, you missed the dressed fleas in Tring Museum.

[@Rorschach.]

Autoshenanigans videos never get dull - in fact they get better and better. Cheers Jon.

[@tedioustotoro4885]

Berkhamstead is also home to the British Film Institute’s archives

[@byteme9718]

And the place where Lidl are due to start construction soon.

[@stevecarter8810]

Well done for properly pronouncing Stevenage (by including the sigh at the start) Never figured out how to spell that correctly. Something like hhhhhhh...stevenage

[@highpath4776]

I suspect Jon grew up near Stevenage

[@roderickmain9697]

IIRC, the explosive mist around buncefield was ignited by some automatic electic timing equipment which caused a spark. The rest, as they say, was nearly all history. Thanks Jon.

[@Trevor_Austin]

Saved Hatfield? Have you been there? The A1(M) tunnel is just a collection of all the exit tunnels built by the smarter residents to aid their escape.

[@joes2677]

You missed that the old airfield in Hatfield was used to film Saving Private Ryan.

[@adecarnally5501]

I have pressed the button specifically for that.

[@binarydinosaurs]

Couple of days after Buncefield failed to destroy the surroundings I was driving back from Watford up the A1 and the whole sky had a very leaden smoky feel to it, all the way back to my gaff in north Herts. It was very bizarre, but not as bizarre as McD’s running out of burger buns because they had a warehouse next to the site. One of my old co-workers also had a computer room next to the site and his pics of the place once he was allowed back in are something else. Excellent your mum joke too, proper chortle at that.

[@bruce6014]

Berkhamsted was called Great Berkhamsted because there's another Berkhamsted (called Little Berkhamsted), a village on the other side of the county near Hertford. I used to live in Little B as it's is known locally; a nice place, though naturally often confused with its bigger namesake.

[@geordieal]

I’ve always liked the Hatfield tunnel…it’s like,a sign to me that I’m on the way out of The South and heading towards The North…and happier days

[@grahamross6397]

Feel the same when crossing the Thelwall Viaduct on the M6!!

[@axelBr1]

The opposite for me, meant I was already well away from the South and heading to the barbaric lands of Newcastle Brown, stottie cakes, weird accent, and women in ridiculously short skirts in the middle of the winter. Fun times.

[@MissingPlanet]

I grew up in Hemel Hempstead but managed to escape about a decade before it exploded. I'd been wishing for it to do that my whole childhood. I'm surprised that Cow Roast, the oddly named hamlet between Berko and Tring didn't get a mention, even if just in passing.

[@kevinrayner5812]

There used to be a massive scrap yard there. Very handy to second hand parts. I remember helping my dad take a gear box out of a Morris 1000.

[@eddiemaylor2716]

I was woken up by the Buncefield explosion (I was living in St Albans), although I didn't realise the significance at the time. A few hours later when I was outside in St Albans we decided to go back inside as the thick black smoke was worrying.

[@mootpoint974]

Yes, same in Tring. Loud noise and front door opened & slammed shut again. I thought the children were messing about & told them to leave the door alone, turned over and went back to sleep …. Then they couldn’t go to school for about two and a half weeks due to the big black cloud hovering over Berkhamsted.

[@chrisarcher5573]

You're very brave walking through the subway in Hatfield.

[@kevinrayner5812]

Should have mentioned when talking about St Albans that not only has it had one battle named after it but two. 1st Battle of St Albans 14 May 1455 and 2nd Battle of St Albans 17 Feb 1461.

[@highpath4776]

Wot No Ringway Manchester to help on that radio thingy ?

[@sonique7]

Great video Jon as always. But you missed a very important historical building at Hatfield, The factory building with its attached control tower seen at 5:03 with the BOAC comet parked outside. This still exists and is now a leisure centre with the tower still attached just off Mosquito Way. N51 45.900 W0 14.675 The object in the field is a VDF (VHF Direction Finding) this fed to an instrument in the control tower that displayed what direction a radio transmission was from. The controller could then tell the pilot what direction they were from the airfield.

[@cycletyneandwear]

Having been born and brought up in Hemel Hempstead, Stevenage always seemed like heaven.

[@phillwainewright4221]

Hemel Hempstead used to be the centre of operations of the Kodak company.

[@highpath4776]

Is that why the roundabout was a copy ?

[@tobyjackman3212]

No way

[@londonglide]

We felt the explosion down in Harrow, and Kodak and Epsom had offices destroyed, along with many other businesses.

[@FinnDeacon]

Thanks

[@AutoShenanigans]

Thanks mate, hope you are well

[@FinnDeacon]

@@AutoShenanigans Its been a really tough couple of years, but I'm coping just. Thank you so much for all the smiles :-)

[@markb159]

Lets get this Sunday Started

[@JamMC]

So you woke up at 12:30?

[@andrewhadley2026]

Thanks!

[@AutoShenanigans]

Thanks a lot mate, appreciate it!

[@oliverstemp9132]

I still remember the flames and smoke from buncefield, I live 6 miles and still could clearly see the fire 😮

[@adamjolley8552]

I like this video so I pressed the button specifically for that 👉🏻

[@kevinmothers904]

You get a thumbs up for that Adam

[@SportyMabamba]

WickedSweetAwesome

[@XNA2NW3]

Same

[@willtricks9432]

How is the Specific Button pressing finger? No RSI as yet?

[@jonathanhall7334]

"It destroyed a lot of stuff but sadly not Hemel" 😂😂😂 Classic.

[@highpath4776]

Worked in Hemel too, the back way round to the old high street via the oil depot roads could sometimes be quicker when I was driving. The smell was still in the air 18 months later when I was going south on the M1 on a Megabus

[@RogerNorman-q6x]

Wow didn’t realise Bunnsfield was 19 years ago. I was bringing my eldest daughter back from Uni in Manchester the day that happened. We were on the M11 but you could see the black smoke plume even when we got home to Sevenoaks area. Usual scaremongers stories then followed by the Press about no fuel etc. can’t say I noticed a problem. Still it made a story.

[@highpath4776]

Given it supplied mainly aircraft and the pipe system could be re-routed all we lost was a bit of storage

[@Anonymoususer_8823]

I’m amazed that how you are covering the East of England that you already doing. I have been to Hertfordshire and it’s a nice county with lots of places to visit.

[@davelilley8311]

hatfeild is famous for queen Elizibeth the 1st, and hatfeild house, as well as the aircraft inferstructure, and back in the day, when there was an epilog before the tv shut down for the night, a vicar from st etheriedle church, used to give a sermon, and bill sykes used to drink in the 8 bells pub,

[@NickDavies75]

Tring is one of my favourite places to pop out to (being about 20 mins drive away) - the Natural History Museum really is worth a visit, and is incredible value at being priced at Free. I'd also recommend the most excellent Culture Bakery on the high street, along with a fantastic restaurant called Crockers. If you enjoy being outside, the College Lake nature reserve is most lovely.

[@davidhull1481]

I do appreciate your including breweries as worthy of mention. Also, about the tunnel through Hatfield. Here in America we didn’t let things like housing get in the way of our highways. We bulldozed thousands of houses, hollowing out city centers (centres?) and creating divided communities. Yay for us!

[@jlcgaming8178]

Notifications working giving me some quality viewing whilst on the throne.

[@David_Crayford]

Long Live The King!

[@willtricks9432]

Now wash your hands.

[@DanielHowarth00]

Jon turned into Michael portillo so gradually i didnt even notice😂 Now im waiting for the funky coloured suits to appear

[@Professional-struggler]

The pause after the take off 😂😂👊 love this man’s sarcasm and really interesting stuff

[@abarratt8869]

Ah, De Havallind, creators of many great aircraft. Just nearby, near London Colney (SE of St Albans) you can find the De Havilland museum; highly recommended! Fab video!

[@1946Ash]

You missed Hatfield House, where Elizabeth I was told she was queen after the death of Mary I.

[@KieranRawley123]

Best “your mum” gag ever. So subtle.

[@geoffreylee5199]

That’s the area my mother grew up in, and grandparents lived, that’s all I know as we left in 1956.

[@queeg6473]

Before it got built on the Hatfield runway was used by various film companies. You could often see squadrens of spitfire planes lined up ready for takeoff. The were made of plywood and about 3 inches wide to get the side angle shots.

[@johncamp2567]

Always informative, cheeky, and well-produced!!☺️

[@fredziffle1991]

We flew back from Amsterdam and the pilot told us to look out to the left so we could see the fire. We were actually on a temporary flight path diverting aircraft further east than normal.

[@David_Crayford]

IIRC some of the fuel stored there was for aircraft at Heathrow Airport.

[@johneaston2293]

i was on a flight from Heathrow to Ausralia and saw the smoke from the fire and funny enough i had on several occasions had worked in there on the pipework as a welder and when they were building the terminal i had tried to get a job there but no luck.

[@MemskiBobSki]

Sunday is complete when you see Jon waving goodbye. Wicked sweet awesome.

[@edwardhammock24]

Comedy genius as always!

[@adamclark6756]

Was that hippo joke a reference to The Mary Whitehouse Experience? It might just be me in my old age fug but that is immediately where my mind went! Another cracking video.

[@markdatko4832]

Or possibly a The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin reference.

[@mrbluesky2050]

@@markdatko4832 agreed on that, the image came immediately into my mind

[@adamclark6756]

@@markdatko4832 Yes, of course it is! Thank you.

[@RobynAnarchist]

Oh hell yeah, now we're in my neck of the woods

[@dougdavidson175]

Another wicked sweet tour of Planes Trains & Autos around Englandshire with John. Thanks M8. Take care & stay safe.

[@shaun30-3-mg9zs]

Hi Jon, "hippos like my mum" well my dad is a walrus what that make me🤣🤣Hatfield that an original name, was there a field and some left there hat there and some said lets build a town there and said ware not ware that's taken were no that's taken. as always a great video and full respect for 1914-18 small disagreement. catch you soon take care

[@frogandspanner]

9:18 Grandad made it back, although with three German machine bullets destroying his left lung, and massive exit wounds. Still, his important gentlemanly bits still worked, which is why I'm here.

[@johntisbury]

We lived in Luton at the time of the Buncefield explosion. On the Sunday morning in December we heard the explosion 50 miles away.

[@JonosBtheMC]

9:18 Of the 12,000, over half were wounded. 2,200 were killed.

[@taiko666]

I lived in Japan for 10 years. The amount of concrete there is insane. That aerial view of Stevenage would be considered beautiful.

[@morebasheder]

I'm going to Hemel on Tuesday. I look forward to my trips there in much the same way as I enjoy being hoofed in the knackers 😂

[@roadgent7921]

Film Quatermass 2 was filmed in Hemel Hempstead in 1957 when it was being built. Well part of it anyway. 😊

[@OswestryGrey]

In the aerial view of Hatfield, the large building with a tower is the fire station. Look straight left and there is a parade of shops. The shop with the red name is Ladbrokes.

[@darthwiizius]

Buncefield was always a bit leaky mate, I used to drive past it on the M1 regularly and there was often a haze over the motorway and stink of petrol. When it went up it woke me up, I live in Letchworth for context.

[@trickygoose2]

I was in Letchworth and didn't wake up perhaps because my bedroom was on the far side relative to the explosion. That day a large black cloud pretty much filled the western part of the sky.

[@David_Crayford]

Very interesting episode this week. I heard the fuel explosion (Sunday morning around 8am)* from Surbiton** and thought a plane had crashed on the other side of the A3. *06:01 UTC on Sunday, 11 December 2005 per Wikipedia. I knew it was Sunday morning. Bloody thing woke me up. 🙂 **42 Km / 26 miles away.

[@gibbosj08]

im from hatfield originally when British aerospace closed down. and before the land was used for development. they used it to film band of brothers i remember watching as a little boy the planes flying around and the pyro technics going off there is also a bunker in what is now the police station i had fun with friends exploring the old hangars before they all got demolished and the remaing one turned into a gym good times

[@johneaston2293]

It was Saving private Ryan they made on the site.

[@leopold7562]

Oh no, I missed you! I’m in Tring next weekend