A SPITFIRE and Hurricane will make a spectacular flypast of Salisbury Cathedral on Monday – to launch the countdown to Salisbury Wings Week next year.

The flypast is expected to take place at 12.30pm and will mark both the Battle of Britain and Wiltshire’s contribution to Spitfire production.

Salisbury Wings Week, from September 14 to 20, 2015, is being organised by local historian and vintage aeroplane pilot Paul Beaver with a week of education and events in Salisbury.

It is based on the campaigns that happened throughout the Second World War which allowed communities to adopt warships, planes and tanks.

Mr Beaver said: “Salisbury’s contribution to the Second World War has been overlooked by historians.

I hope we can help to set the record straight by highlighting the efforts of local people to do their bit.

“Wiltshire had a number of production facilities in Devizes, Swindon and Trowbridge, as well as Salisbury which, with the help of the Wiltshire M u s e u m Service and V i s i t Wiltshire, we will also highlight.”

During the week there will be lectures, schools projects, a concert, a retro-market and end with a major event in the Market Place and Guildhall.

“One project will be for schoolchildren to visit the elderly and record their remembrances of the Second World War in general and Salisbury’s part in particular,”

said Clare Tunnicliffe, who runs the Salisbury Wings education sub-committee.

Salisbury was one of the first towns or cities to hold a Wings Week to raise money to buy a Spitfire for the Nation.

Lord Beaverbook, given the role of Minister for A i r c r a f t Production in May 1940, set up the Spitfire Funds and the people of Wiltshire answered with the money for three aircraft.

The Journal, then called the Salisbury and Winchester Journal, ran a campaign in 1941, which raised more than £6,000 to buy Spitfires – about £660,000 today’s money.