the aerodome

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Intro to The Aerodome

It has always seemed to me odd, and inaccurate, that in films and books about World War Twothere are almost never any Indian, African, Chinese or Arab characters, other than as “the natives”, that ubiquitous and demeaning imperial denominator. Has there ever been a feature film about the Burma Front that portrays Indian troops in character roles? And if such a yawning gap exists, then why is it so? In the C19th, my family emigrated from Afghanistan to the British Raj of India as a consequence of the so-called ‘Great Game’ being played out between those two 'Mint Imperials', Russia and Britain. During WW2, my maternal grandfather fought as a Field Officer, a major and adjutant, on that forgotten Front (forgotten, even in its own time). Thirty years later, after my parents had migrated to Britain, as a boy I used to cycle past the many disused, deserted aerodromes of eastern England. I even learned to drive on one! In its obsolescence, the word “aerodrome” seems somehow sonorous and poetic, like the word “oracle”. And let me tell you, they are eerie places, especially in the unbroken, blinding sunlight of mid-summer (I never ventured into one at night!). Nowadays, some of them are still used occasionally for Sunday go-kart racing and suchlike, but they once held within their perimeters the bulk of British air power and the precariously-balanced fate of that country at a critical time. So, in more ways than one, these places are part of my history too.

This story, The Aerodrome derives from the stationing of South Asian troops in the UK during in WWII – something also seldom portrayed in depictions of that time. The name, ‘Yusuf’ (Joseph) means ‘Beauty’. 

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