Obsessions...

By Dave Lockwood

We all have them, for some of us it’s the chase of capturing ‘that’ plane in flight or collecting serial numbers. I have a new one though and it’s something I can’t quite figure out why, patches.

I’ve spent far too much in recent months at events, trawling eBay, obscure websites for those pieces of cloth/plastic that adorn the sleeves of aircrew. Why am I doing this? I buy them, look at them and put them in a box. After all I could be saving the money to spend of useless camera gear that I’ll never use.

Take this one, it’s a Phantom patch from Desert Storm. There it was amongst hundreds of others randomly displayed on the Spanish Harrier stand at RIAT – a Phantom patch – yep had to have it. Also bought the other one for my Ameican friend who is equally obsessive about Phantoms (yes, him to those who also know him) – A quick message – “Mate, you seen this one before”? “WOAH!!!” came the quick reply, obviously not. Said patch is now winging its way across the pond. Now I could blame him but my fixation on all things patch wise started innocuously some time before.

If I attend a special event, a photoshoot or an exercise I’ll try and pick up a patch. This years Iniochos was no exception and there was one Indian patch I couldn't get as they’d sold out. Bids were placed and lost on eBay. Only for a Dutch friend to pop up and say I’ve got that. He’d already asked me to get some crew patches from the exercise for him so a swap was arranged. There we were in the pouring rain at RIAT comparing patches, pointing ot what was on sale and who had what. Yeah, madness.

It’s even got to the point where if I see something I like, I’ll grab a quick photo and go hunting. Queuing up at the 495th stall on the way out of Fairford on the Sunday, to pick up a patch that was out of stock the day before, I saw this on the back of a bag…

Now I’m obsessed and have to have it. Am I turning into Gollum seeking ‘my precious’? I’ve no answer to why, it’s just something that I now do.

Airshows are expensive enough, so I’m already saving for next years RIAT and trips abroad.

Obsessions can be bloody expensive things. Anyone else collect Die-cast?