It is perhaps odd to think that, until 2013, it has been at least a couple of decades since there has been a running example of the A27M Cromwell in the UK. Whether with hindsight we would judge the Cromwell to have been a 'good' tank (whatever that means) when compared to its contemporaries is debatable, but it was historically important in a vehicle sense if only because it first went into action in Normandy in June 1944 with the Desert Rats, the 7th Armoured Division, and went on to become the most numerically significant British cruiser tank of WW2. Nevertheless, for too many years and despite there being examples in museums and overseas, we haven't had the opportunity to see or hear a Cromwell at full tilt in the country of its birth... until now. For at the inaugural War and Peace Revival last July, Rick Wedlock's Cromwell, the result of some three years of restoration work, made its public debut. The project started back in 2010 when Rick heard of a Centaur being offered for sale by dealer Ian Galliers. 'I thought I must have it,' recalls Rick, 'so took the morning off work and drove down to Shrewsbury to see it.
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