Transit

Posted 30-10-2016

I can be sure of the date although I didn't have my BOAC Junior Jet Club Log Book until 1965. My father had kept a record which I still have. It was BOAC Rolls-Royce 707, flight BA 695 from London Airport (in those days there was only one) to Piarco Airport, Trinidad, British West Indies. It was my first transatlantic flight and my first trip home since being interned at a boarding school in Somerset in September 1962, aged 8 and a few weeks.

It was normal back then for the ex-pat colonials to send their offspring back to the UK for a "proper" education and almost always and certainly in my case, the employer paid for the travel and either all or half of the school fees - part of the deal. In my case, my father working for British Petroleum was allowed to take a longer leave every two years to the UK, the travel cost for the wife and under 8-year-old children paid by them.

My trip in 1962 with my parents to the UK to deposit me at the school had been by ship which was then the usually chosen way. Quite often there was quite a bit of luggage and again with my parents, they would usually buy a car in Europe and on their return, take it back with them on the ship.

Anyway to the Blip. The morning flight from London was with stops in Bermuda, Antigua, Barbados before touching down in the evening in Trinidad. Just short of 6000 miles and 13 hours flying time. There were a couple of other brats like me banned to the back rows of the aircraft and we were actually treated quite well, all being issued with a large tin containing colouring pencils, games, a few sweeties etc.

it was all new to me. At the stops, we had to disembark to the airport while the plane was refuelled and stocked up with food and drink. One was issued with the above card as one walked down the plane steps and was then free to walk around in and around the airport as freely as one wanted. When the flight was ready one marched across the tarmac and gave the card back.

At Bermuda and Antigua, I kept with the other unaccompanied children who by the time we got to Barbados had dwindled to just me. So at Barbados, not only now confident of the process and a bit bored, I strolled outside the terminal and ended up in a viewing area watching the small amount of activity on the airfield. Suddenly I realised the passengers were boarding my plane (it was after all the only BOAC plane on the tarmac) and I must have made some remark overheard by a couple waving someone off. They heaved me over the 4-foot wall and I charged over the tarmac arriving just as the door was about to be closed. In the hectic, the stewardess forgot to take back the card.

Ever since then it has accompanied me all over the world as a bookmarker - it's very rigid plastic coated and about half the size of a paperback. I guess I ought to see if there is a BOAC museum who would like it. Though it could be useful for opening door locks without a key - good plastic they had back then, even if the airport security fences and boarding passes were not quite so advanced.