Welcome to my website
I'm not exactly sure why I have set up this website. I suppose it could be a celebration of an extraordinarily varied life and a chance to share my experiences.
Also it will be a cornucopia of trivia, irreverences and an Aladdin's cave of codswallop.
Visitor's notice
Jump straight in if you wish to be bored by the ramblings of an ancient aviator.
Experience the shenanigans of airline life from the sixties until the present.
Re-live real life drama!
What really happens on crew layovers?
To be continued....
I'm sitting in the departure hall of Nice, Coted'Azur airport waiting for a flight to London Heathrow. The airport seems strangely empty. Have I missed something I wonder, is President Sarkosy due for a visit to drum up support for his foundering election campaign? Is someone giving away free suppositories in Cannes? Is Angelina Jolie taking her kit off on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice? More likely someone is on strike of just didn't bother to turn up today.
I moved with my family to the South of France some years ago to get away from the grey English weather, grey English people and equally grey politics. We were greeted with a kaleidoscope of colour. The sky was impossibly blue, vivid vibrant flowers abounded, multi-hued houses nestled atop hills with impossibly narrow cobbled streets. Majestic snow clad mountains framed the sparkling blue waters of the Mediterranean. Everything seemed so energetic, progressive and optimistic.
That is until I experienced the French way of doing things…..
I digress. What has this to do with aviation aberrations you might ask…
Well it all happened in 1968 when a naïve 18 year young man stepped off the train in Southampton to begin an 18 month course at the College of Air Training in Hamble to train as a pilot for British European Airways or British Overseas Airways Corporation….