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The North Camp is not open to the public and in its RAF days was known as the domestic site and was the site of the Officers' Mess and Airmen's living quarters, much of which has now been sold or demolished. It is now the storage area for the IWM's reserve collection and archives.

The members met in the Astra which was the original RAF cinema. After refreshments they were given a briefing by Nicola Hughes, the Duxford's Volunteer Co-ordinator, before they were split into two  groups to be shown around the various buildings.

The tour included the building where the uniform collection is stored and preserved.
The presentation emphasised the individual history of the examples shown.  Firstly was the First World War service dress jacket of Lt Col Gordon Potts, and then a Second World War German parachutist's smock, which was given by his German captors to a British POW, who escaped to his own line, only to find himself reprimanded for endangering himself to being shot by his own side, dressed in a German uniform. Bringing the story up to date, a Royal Anglian's uniform recently worn in Afghanistan, which was donated by a soldier who was wounded in action? It was emphasised that the personal story behind the exhibit was as important as the exhibit itself.

The guests then went to look in one of the nissen huts, which was like an Aladdin cave of larger exhibits. From a pieces of First World War Zeppelin airship, various artillery items, mortars, Second World War sea mines and huge First World War Bomb - I found it difficult to believe that there was such an aircraft big enough at the time to carry it!

In the buildings that house the film department, we were shown how new copies of film are created and made available for commercial use, while the original is conserved and stored. We were told that the old cellulose based film, which is highly volatile, has to be stored separately in concrete bunkers at a site at nearby Ickleton. We were shown a short clip of Anglian TV video tape of the early days of the Museum. We were also told of the problems the Museum staff have with the ever-changing technology with different types of film and video tapes and formats, and now CDs, DVDs. The rapidly changing technology makes it difficult to decide on the best way to store such footage.

Next the group was invited in to the building which stores printed books, maps, leaflets, and documents covering everything from the Nuremberg trials to soldiers letters home to mum. We were taken to look at a small sample of the collection items such as ration books, and a map of "Operation Sea Lion" the German plan for the invasion of Great Britain.

The members then returned to the Astra, to be entertained by Les Millgate who as a serving RAF pilot related amusing anecdotes of post war life at Duxford.

This was followed by an illustrated talk about the work of the photographic department, moving then to the building which houses a vast collection of photographs on film and plates.

Amongst these were some of the large collection of First World War aerial reconnaissance plates taken over the trench's, by heavy hand held plate cameras, with one exposure per plate, and in a cold open cockpit aeroplane, whilst being shot at!

Everybody seemed to have an enjoyable day, much to the hard work by Nicola Hughes and the conservation staff on North Side, who opened up their archive for us to see.