Chief executive of Lincoln Bomber Command Centre receives OBE in King’s new year honours list
A woman who has been instrumental in helping people to share an important part of their past is receiving an OBE.
Nicky van der Drift is chief executive of the International Bomber Command Centre near Lincoln, a memorial that carries the thousands of names of those in RAF Bomber Command and an education centre that holds and tells their stories.
She was inspired to be involved in the project by Tony Worth, a long-time colleague and former Lord Lieutenant of Lincolnshire.
“The International Bomber Command Centre was Tony’s concept, and I had worked with him on other projects in the past,” said Nicky, whose previous skills lay in communications and events management.
“He said we needed to raise £1 million and that it would take a year. That was in January 2012. Like so many ideas, it grew.”
Asked by Tony what she wanted to achieve through the project, Nicky said it should educate people about what Bomber Command did, and so the idea arose for an education centre on the site, alongside a spire memorial, a wall of names, and a peace garden.
“Having gone from it taking a year, I’m now in my 12th year of the project,” said Nicky.
Unfortunately, Tony was diagnosed with cancer and died shortly before the centre opened in 2017.
But his concept continues to develop and the International Bomber Command Centre now holds an archive that includes nearly 3,000 oral accounts of life in Bomber Command, which operated the Royal Air Force’s bomber forces from 1936 to 1968.
As Nicky acknowledges, now that nearly 80 years have passed since the Second World War, the opportunities to record such accounts are slipping away.
In addition to documenting Bomber Command’s work during the Second World War, the centre continues to expand its resources and is building a detailed history of the Cold War period, when the RAF’s ‘V bombers’ carried nuclear weapons.
But it is what happened immediately after the Second World War that makes the International Bomber Command Centre so poignant.
“Once the war ended, no one talked about it,” said Nicky.
“RAF Bomber Command was left out of Churchill’s victory speech and the bombing of German cities, which resulted in many civilian deaths, meant its people were not hailed as war heroes.”
This was despite all 125,000 aircrew who served being volunteers, with more than two-thirds killed, seriously injured or taken as prisoners of war. The average age of their deaths was 23.
“Coming to the International Bomber Command Centre has given people the opportunity to speak about their role in the war,” said Nicky.
“Not long after we opened, we had a veteran in with his three daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
“He had visited the spire and was then regaling the great-grandchildren with stories from the war.
“One of his daughters started crying and, when he asked her why, she said it was because she had never heard him speak about his role in the war before.
“What they did was important and the centre recognises the cost to them.”
As well as those keen to learn about Lincolnshire’s wartime history, The International Bomber Command Centre attracts people who are interested in family history and come to trace ancestors. And because those who served came from across the UK and Commonwealth, it is also an attraction for people from overseas.
The centre’s 412 active volunteers, and many more past volunteers, are like a family, according to Nicky, and they have a choir, an orchestra and operate a ‘befriending’ service to make sure veterans do not feel isolated.
A former pupil of Bourne Grammar School, Nicky, who is married with four children, said she checked her new year’s honour letter twice when it arrived, to make sure “it wasn’t a prank”.
“I feel privileged to do what I do, but I am just a figurehead,” she said. “This is one for the team.”
The International Bomber Command Centre recently received The King’s Award for Voluntary Service, the highest award given to volunteer groups across the UK.
