It had to be a fairly long ladder because the crew door in the rear fuselage of the airplane was fifteen feet above the fenced off rectangle of lawn below. The Lancaster had been placed on the supports that held it in a horizontal position in 1963. Other Lancasters that were placed on display had been mounted on concrete plinths. Their floors had been cut away, concrete poured into their bomb bays, and their main wing spars partially cut. George and his friends had mounted the Nanton Lancaster properly so the aircraft would not be damaged.

George found the key. As we explored the fuselage with flashlights, we found a somewhat dusty but otherwise fairly clean interior. There were no instruments or interior equipment in the Lancaster. It had all been stolen or vandalized shortly after the aircraft arrived in Nanton in the fall of 1960.

Harry Dwelle had done a great job back in 1962. He had carefully removed all the broken plexiglass and covered the turrets and canopy with perfectly shaped pieces of tin. There wasn't a sign that even a single bird had been able to manoeuvre its way through Harry's work. Harry and others had ensured the plane would be protected.

The following spring we were back inside the Lanc again, this time getting ready for "Open Bomber Days." Using tin-snips we cut some rectangular windows in Harry's tin cockpit canopy, filling the holes with plexiglass to let some light in. Stairs were built so that the crew door could be safely reached and a ladder placed to access the escape hatch in the bomb aimer's position in the nose of the aircraft.

"Open Bomber Days" was a huge success. Some seven hundred people of all ages stood in long lines to climb up the ladder to reach the cockpit of the Lancaster and then make their way through the fuselage to the crew door and down the stairway. A few of us were stationed at various locations in the plane to chat with the visitors. What we found during this weekend was that there was a powerful connection between many of the people and the airplane.

Later in the day, two veterans who had been part of the same crew actually met inside the airplane, having not seen each other since World War II. One had already toured through the plane when he noticed the other's name in our guestbook. He returned saying, "There's a guy in here I've got to meet," and there was an emotional reunion inside the fuselage. We were learning of the strong bonds that had formed between members of a Bomber Command crew.

Sons and daughters filed through the aircraft. Many said that their father had flown in Lancasters but hadn't told them anything about his role during the war or what it had been like. Some vowed to bring Dad to Nanton so that he could go through the plane with them and tell them about his wartime experiences. We found that this generation was very interested in learning about what their parents had gone through.

As one pilot's son from Calgary went through the plane he asked if he could work on it, to help restore it. It was heartening to see that people from outside Nanton were willing to get their hands dirty and help out. Fred Hollowell has been travelling to Nanton on a regular basis ever since. As part of the Merlin engine restoration team, he watched with pride as the starboard-inner started and the Lancaster came to life during the summer of 2005.

Jon Spinks drove up from Lethbridge to help with "Open Bomber Days". A history student at the University of Lethbridge, Jon had made us aware of the dozens of Lancasters that had been sold to farmers in southern Alberta following the war. He told us about the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan stations where Avro Ansons and other training aircraft had served and then were sold to farmers following the war. Jon showed us how we could collect valuable parts from wartime aircraft right in our own back yard. He thought we should collect training aircraft too and we soon began to do just that. Although barely out of his teens, Jon was a true enthusiast and had even approached the Town of Nanton, prior to the formation of the Lancaster Society, with the hope of buying the Lancaster. Through Jon we learned that there were other people who were interested in preserving vintage aircraft and their history.