AS SPECULATION mounts over the future of Manchester's first airport, a former Atherton aircraft worker visited the site for the first time since the 1940s.

When 88-year-old Les Manley took a trip down memory lane by visiting Barton aerodrome, he looked upon the place he once knew as the International Manchester Airport, where planes from Europe and Ireland came to land.

He was greeted with a few familiar sights, such as the 1930s octagonal control tower, built by one of his friends, an original brick hanger which is still used, and the old wooden canteen where he used to go for a drink and sometimes a dance.

But there was little to be seen of the Army base Les remembers, or the little wooden hut used as a customs office.

Les said: "It is a bit different -- but not a great deal."

The aerodrome is currently facing an uncertain future as property giant Peel Holdings -- which owns the Trafford Centre -- is to buy the site from Manchester City Council.

Peel has also submitted plans for a race course in Worsley, which has prompted Worsley Civic Trust and Amenity Society chairman Adrian Dunning to voice fears that Peel may choose to have a new airfield opened near to the track -- and nearer to Boothstown and Astley.

Les started work at Barton in 1941 and spent three years there.

"I really wanted to be a pilot," he said. "But I went to work at Barton during the war after a spell in Trafford Park shaping propellers for Spitfires and Hurricanes in Hill's joinery shop -- originally the Model T Ford factory in Trafford Park.

"The Battle of Britain was taking place, Manchester was blitzed and I was making propellers by day and on NFS work at night. Barton was being introduced as an operational flying base."

Les worked on crash aeroplanes and time-expired planes and he progressed to becoming an inspector.

He said: "It was an international airport, workshop and flying field all at the same time. Dakotas and De Havilland bi-planes came from Europe and by Aer Lingus from Ireland. There was an armed guard, a barrage balloon and anti-aircraft gun, and a customs' office little bigger than a builders' cabin."

Memories

Walking round the site, memories came flooding back. He said: "There was no proper runway, it was all grass. There were two big power station chimneys on the approach to the landing strip which made it difficult to land."

The airport had no night-flying facilities and there were no motorways leading to it.

Les remembers workers using a litmus test to check if water had mixed with the fuel -- on one occasion he remembers all the fuel having to be drained out of planes after water was detected.

In Les's day, no private planes were kept on the site, there were no flying clubs, and only one aircraft hanger. Today, the aerodrome is chiefly used for pleasure and business flights, and is leased to the Lancashire Aero Club. Three aircraft hangers are now in use, with owls roosting in one of them.

Before Les began his aircraft work at Barton, he remembers the octagonal control tower -- which is now a listed building -- being built. A friend of his, Jack Winstanley, was a foreman bricklayer at the Little Hulton firm of G.J. Seddon, which constructed the tower.

Les said: "John took on the tower contract regardless of profit -- it was purely a prestige symbol." Surveyors came to set out the octagon but in the end, Jack told them to leave it to him. He set out a perfect octagon on a five feet square plywood sheet and screwed it to a concrete block in the centre of the proposed tower. He set a pin in the centre of his board and from this attached piano wires radiating to each corner of his setting-out board to pegs. Nowhere was it more than one quarter of an inch out of measurement!

He said: "Conditions was bad. There was no heating even in mid winter.

"At one time an RAF pilot wagered he could land a Lancaster there. He did but tore-up the land on braking and the place was at argon for ages waiting for a 60mph wind to help take off. Then a Havoc fighter landed and as it had an 120mph take-off speed it had to wait ages for a gale.

"I have also seen a Moth with a take off speed of 40 mph trying to land in a 60mph wind and actually flying backwards!

"Delegates from Carlux -- a car electrical firm pressed in to aircraft work sent delegates to Shawbury airfield and came back amazed "there is a plane flying without a propeller". They were ridiculed by Barton staff but they had witnessed Whittle's first jet."

Les also recalled how a dive bomb exercise went wrong at Tatton Park.

"A wing tip caught in the trees and brought the plane down. The plane hit a six foot bank at 100 mph and threw everyone out except the belted-in pilot. Four were killed included works manager Bert Smales and the chief AIO inspector.

"I had been on that plane on test flight the night before. It was a good plane and I had inspected and passed it only hours earlier."

Les left Barton to work at Hooton Park, an airfield on The Wirral, often working on Mosquitos.

He said: "They had to be kept flying, whatever the cost or how many hours were worked. "

Wood-working miracles were performed in Martin Hearne's new hangar, dedicated to the job.

"To splice a new front to an old rear fuselage with a glued joint was quite common," he said . "Some of the Mosquitoes returned like a sieve from Germany. Then they dropped that bomb at Hiroshima and that was that."

Les will be 89 in March and in his long life has seen monumental changes. He would not be surprised by any proposals for Barton, but whatever happens, he is certain the control tower should be preserved for posterity. He said: "Whether it remains at Barton or put on show elsewhere, it ought to be preserved."