One of the staff was quite interested in our inquiries. "We don’t get many people interested in Pyestock," he said, "mostly because they don't know about it. It was rather secretive. I suspect it’s all been demolished now." We pointed out that it was still all intact and we planned to spend the afternoon there. "Really?" he said, surprised and pleased, "I used to work there."

He was employed as a medic and one of his first tasks on the site was to crawl into every accessible knock-and-cranny to plan how a potentially injured employee could be retrieved. He led us over to a huge aerial photograph of the site and pointed out the experimental ejector seat mechanism rig which was used to test ejector seats. It was a vital piece of work as the early ejector seats unfortunately killed any pilot who tried to it. I realised the rig had now gone; but it explained the "exclusion zone" marked on various maps of the site and the need for small explosive store located nearby. By coincidence, it was the first part of Pyestock Tom and I encountered the previous year, pausing by the sheds around the former testing area before running across the service road to the relative safety of Cell 4.

A piece of paper sellotaped to the door advertised Ian MacKenzie’s book and gave a publication date of the following week. Again, my luck seemed to have deserted me (not a good omen for our forthcoming trespassing) but I happened to stop by a bookcase and suddenly realised Ian MacKenzie’s book was on the bottom shelf.

Was this a preview copy? It was definitely worth a try at least. I took it to the cash till where it was viewed with some surprise. "How much is this?" "It says £8.99 on the back." The purchase was made and we left the museum with the book one week before its official publication. I still don’t know if I successfully purchased the museum's preview copy or the book was legitimately on sale before its official release date.