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Taranto Night Dinner Review

Saturday 8^th November 2025

Marriott Hotel, Port Solent

Should you ever decide to hold a ‘Taranto Night’ Dinner, don’t underestimate how long it takes to make up at least 100 cardboard biplanes, particularly when a discussion  ensues, late in the day, as to the relative aerodynamics of planes, either with or without propellers, trajectory, and likelihood of reaching target (Thank you John Scott and Dave Forety); not to mention the small matter of inflating over 30 helium 'barrage' balloons.

However, ‘Team Taranto' did a fabulous set up job at the Marriott; Dave and Claire Fortey, John Scott, Alan Bowie, and Jane Nweze made ready for ‘Battle Stations’.

Following ‘Grace’ by the Commodore, our ‘Battle of Taranto’ raged in between courses, and at times, the interchanges did resemble a bun fight in a kids’ playground but definitely added to the overall sense of chaos and fun.

In the first few waves of attack, some ‘Italian’ tables were rather overzealous with their gunfire, and ended up short of ammunition; they did, however, very kindly send the British planes back without the need for sprightly reconnaissance and retrieval. (By the way, congratulations to whoever landed their plane on top of 824 Squadron’s table plane).

I don't think that throwing ‘popper’ shells was quite part of the plan, but improvisation is often the essence of combat success.

A very big thank you to all table captains on both ‘sides’, namely Deborah King, Mark Reed, John Scott, David Jump, Paul Depper, Nikki Richardson, Derek Kalinski and John Heaton and also the Bunting ‘Person’, Ryan Morgan, and Alan Bowie, as Captain of Illustrious and very much in command of the telegraph. Your collective efforts made a splendid contribution to the success of the evening. A little more discipline in ‘the ranks’ would have been welcome but obviously not as much fun!

I wonder whether the Marriott will have us back.

Andy Cassel Brown with 'fun' as his middle name, did a sterling job of rallying his Italian Fleet. His sense of style and dress, line delivery, both scripted and unscripted, was impeccable, ably assisted by Angie...did anyone else think of the film  'Love Actually’.

And finally, Dave Fortey, as well as delivering a humorous script, should now be thinking of auditioning for a role on ‘Blue Peter’ as the sticky back plastic king, given the superb ‘props’ he created for the evening.

Taranto Night is ‘enthusiastically’ commemorated by the Fleet Air Arm but, in drawing the evening’s proceedings to a close, Dave brought us back to the reality of the harsh battle, and the courageous men that, again, changed the course of history. 

And so, with one final 'tap of the gavel’ my heartfelt thanks and BZs to everyone in PSYC for helping make the events of the past two years, so much fun.

Susan