I spy with my little eye.

 We travelled across to Tangmere Military Aviation Museum recently. It's another of those cracking places that is completely run by volunteers and packed to the rafters with stuff. I was expecting there to be more planes [which to be honest I wasn't too disappointed to find that there weren't many], but instead they had cabinet upon cabinet of artefacts which told a plethora of fascinating stories. Military history is not a particular area of interest not should war ever be glorified, but the social aspects of it and hearing the stories of ordinary people doing remarkable things drew me in. I plan to do the place more justice in a fuller post after the madness of Christmas is past, but for now I'd like to share a few shots of the ingenuous use of everyday objects to conceal things which you would not have wanted to fall into enemy hands. Some of these items were given to POWs and others carried by those working as spies. 

The razor blades marked with Fleet, Cheerio and Kleen had a magnetizer on them and when floated on the surface of water the top edge pointed north.

False backed playing cards. If you peeled the front off there were map references below and the Joker contained the master key.

A fountain pen with a compass in the cap and a reduced sized ink sack so that it could hide a map.

Magnetised penclips, nibs and even a humble matchstick. The absolute gall. I wouldn't have suspected a thing!

It would seem that any item was considered fair game in the push to win the war. Anything from dominoes to pipes or hollow cotton reels which came apart. More examples below.

I can really see where Ian Fleming got his inspiration for James Bond and Q's inventions!

Aril꩜