Don Berrington was Managing Director of the Helicopter Division at Westland. He joined the company in 1950 and remembers being an active member of the Apprentices Association

The apprentices association was quite active and we were all very proud to belong to it and it had quite a number of sports teams and what have you. I was never much good at any of them so I did not get too involved. The sports club existed in those days and we also had an apprentice room there which was set aside for the apprentices which we could use for our own devices. I was very much involved in aeromodelling. We had a room which we rented for virtually next to nothing in the British Legion where we made model aeroplanes and what have you and generally probably Health and Safety wouldn’t be happy with it today because we had all sorts of balsa wood and all sorts of adhesives that were probably highly inflammable. Anyway, the aeromodelling section was really very, very strong. Of course, until quite recently there was a big aeromodelling section. I don’t know if it still exists. We used to fly Saturday mornings from the airfield, sorry, Sunday mornings from the airfield. So, yes, there were quite a lot of activities going on and you never really felt at a loose end.