Caught out by the icy weather, we very nearly missed our flight over to Holland last weekend. The ponderous rush hour traffic was even more donkey-like than usual in the country roads around Luton but I didn’t want to play motorway roulette, not with the M25. It was tense, Poz was reaching the end of his car-tolerance and my mental arithmetic had us too late for the Easy Jet check-in.
“I’ll drop you two off at departures with the bags and go and find the car park,” I told Jane, trying to stay calm. “Get your foot in the door and if they won’t check us in because I’m not there, hold Poz up and start crying, OK? I won’t be far behind.”
In the event Jane had had the foresight to print off the boarding passes so it was just a bag drop at the desk and we were in. Unfortunately the plane was then delayed on the tarmac and we were the ones left feeling frustrated. I hate flying, I’ve been doing it all my life and I look back on the old days with rose-tinted specs.
I was packed off to boarding school from Malawi to Zimbabwe on an old Vickers Viscount. I remember walking out of the single storey blockhouse comprising Blantyre International Airport, turning and looking up at my mum and dad who were standing on the roof terrace waving goodbye. Ahead of me was a patchy lawn with faded Martini umbrellas casting shade over decrepit sets of tables and chairs. There was a chain link fence, a garden gate and the tarmac across which we walked to the plane, waving all the way. I was never searched, or delayed, and although I wasn’t particularly happy about being shipped off on my own at the age of seven, the flight wasn’t otherwise such an ordeal.
Another thing that seems crazy these days, but we probably collectively won’t miss, was the in-flight smoking. The only concession given to non-smokers was that they were seated up front. As soon as the seat belt light went out there was a scraping and clicking of matches and lighters and a pall of fag smoke would gradually roll up the aisle. I liked the smell in those days, particularly of the matches.
