PEOPLE turned out in force to celebrate RAF 100 - the centenary year of the Royal Air Force - with the service men and women based at RAF Odiham.

And they also used the opportunity on June 9 to mark the Queen’s 92nd birthday.

The market town of Odiham was packed for the occasion, with the morning devoted to the spills and thrills of an RAF-themed box cart race along the High Street, making way in the afternoon for a street party with more than 1,200 residents, half of them families from RAF Odiham.

Eleven teams were registered to build and crew an appropriate box cart, half of them from RAF Odiham, with the balance coming from the community and neighbouring parishes.

A monumental amount of effort and creativity had been invested in all the carts, giving Group Captain Lee Turner, RAF Odiham’s station commander, a difficult job in awarding the best cart design prize. But in the end, the prize went to The Dunleys Hill Billies, a civilian team from Dunleys Hill whose Sopwith Camel was declared “a work of art!”.

The best crew prize was awarded to a team from Robert May’s Secondary School - somewhat stretching the RAF theme with a Star Wars entry - but firmly maintaining that ‘Space’ was the future for the Royal Air Force.

The judges, comprising Odiham Parish Council chairman Jon Hale, Group Capt Turner and Leanne Legge from Boeing, were particularly impressed by Robert May’s headteacher Joanna West who, according to Mr Hale, “while not piloting the craft, demonstrated her skills as a Jedi master member of the cart’s ground crew”.

The fastest scramble prize saw another civilian team, The Pilot Pathfinders from Dogmersfield, win the glory. Each crew was summoned to their dispersal position by an air-raid siren. But at the sound of the bell they had to “run like hell” to launch their cart and took just 10 seconds to move from their deck chairs in the team dispersal tent to launch their cart over the start line.

However, it was team from RAF Odiham, A Bunch of Tools, who secured the top award for the fastest cart. The crew was made up of members of the RAF Odiham Chinook Support Centre and, as highly skilled engineers (a slight advantage), they had based their cart on a trusty RAF tool box, with an integrated water cannon.

After the cart racing came the street party, which included a helicopter, then a Battle of Britain fly past. Entertainment was provided by several brass bands - and following the ‘loyal toast to the Queen’ and a collective rendition of the National Anthem, a huge cake, big enough for all the guests, was served and handed out by the air cadets.

Both events were fully supported by RAF Odiham and sponsored by Hart District Council - reflecting a commitment to the Armed Forces Covenant, whose chairman, Wendy Makepeace Brown, was in attendance alongside North-East Hampshire MP Ranil Jayawardena and Hampshire county councillor Jonathan Glen.

Commenting on the event, Mr Hale said: “Odiham is proud to be home to our nation’s Chinook force and our community celebration to mark RAF100 was a spectacular success, raising thousands of pounds for RAF charities and giving those who attended an amazing day to show their support for the Royal Air Force.

“But the day was only made possible thanks to the efforts of our volunteer event management team, including councillors Faulkner and Harris, Sqn Ldr David, Flt Lt Clark, Russ Haines, Becci and Rob Friend and Mark Kellie who, over the last six months, have clocked up hundreds of hours between them and have been just fantastic to work with.

“The success of the day was also underpinned by the immense efforts of the air cadets, Tom Janaway and his team from Ford Farm (who supplied more than 250 hay bales), the box cart race marshals and, of course, the wider support from RAF Odiham.”

And he added: “We are also hugely grateful to the RAF and community box cart teams who clearly invested an extensive amount of time in their creations. And we were very lucky to have Hart District Council on board, who partnered with us to deliver the day.”