Restored Spitfire going back on public display in Stoke
It's at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery
A Spitfire donated to Stoke-on-Trent by the RAF in 1972 is back on public display.
It's part of a a new glass-fronted £5.4 million gallery as an "anything's possible'' symbol of hope.
The aircraft's official unveiling in a 3,800 sq ft extension to the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery on Wednesday, being attended by the great-nephew of the Spitfire's designer Reginald Mitchell, follows a multi-year restoration programme and coincides with Battle of Britain Day.
The dedicated Spitfire Gallery, opens to the public on Saturday and will be used to promote engineering as a career to young people, as well as allowing visitors to learn about the history of the aircraft and more than 20 others designed by Staffordshire-born Mitchell.
Speaking before the unveiling of the plane and its new surroundings, including numerous displays detailing the aircraft's engine and history, Mitchell's great-nephew Julian Mitchell said he could remember being taken as a small child to the previous ceremony in June 1972.
Mr Mitchell, whose great-uncle died aged 42 in 1937, said:
'I am delighted that it has come back restored to how it was when I first saw it.
'The plane means a lot to the people of Stoke-on-Trent. I think it means a lot to the people of the country, and it's a symbol of hope, the Spitfire.'
Ahead of the official unveiling, Second World War veteran Norman Lewis, aged 102, was given a sneak preview of the restored Spitfire, which he described as a 'wonderful' sight.
Mr Lewis, from Meir, Stoke-on-Trent, was captured in June 1940 in France while serving with the Royal Engineers.
He says:
'I covered 10,000 miles in three months and I arrived home on April the 1st 1945. Some good news was, when I got to Egypt, they told me I'd got five years back-pay to pick up, which was wonderful.'
Stoke-on-Trent's Spitfire spent three years in a workshop at an airfield in Kent, where it was restored, before being transported back to north Staffordshire in June, with a crane lifting it into its new home.
The exhibition has been funded through a successful bid for £210,000 from a joint funding pot run by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in partnership with the Wolfson Foundation.
Further funding totaling £47,000 was also raised with help from Operation Spitfire, The Friends of the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, and through visitors' donations.