By air

I'm not sure of the first time I went in an aeroplane. I think it was probably when we went on holiday to Majorca but I can't remember anything about it. I do remember when we flew to Hong Kong, not least because I threw up every time the 'plane took off or landed. I was eight and we were in a British Airways Boeing 747. 

The vomithon to one side, I do remember how spacious the 'planes were in those days. And also how long it took; 15 hours and thirty seven minutes flying time, just under a day elapsed. Thank God we weren't in a modern style cramped plane. Mind you, I also remember the fact you could smoke on 'planes in those days. 

After we came back to England, I don't think I flew again until I was sixteen, when my scout troop did some kind of crossover with the local air scouts. They got to whittle a tent peg and we went up in a light aircraft. I can remember quite looking forward to it - I was, after all, a seasoned, if somewhat projectile, traveller - but the experience scarred me; I hated every frightening moment. 

I thought that was just a one-ff - due to the size of the 'plane - so, six years later, when I went on honeymoon to Portugal, I was surprised to find myself bloody terrified. And then again subsequently on the annual family holidays to Austria. My then wife and our burgeoning collection of daughters would drive out in convoy with her family to Innsbruck (where her mother's family lived) and I would fly out for the weekend in the middle. One year, I had to change somewhere in Germany and the rest of the journey was in a twin prop with about six seats.

This fear of flying only came to end when I was working in Edinburgh. Through some skilful delegation I had put myself in an awkward position of not having a tremendous amount with which to occupy myself and so it was decided that my time would be well spent running a second team in London rather than spending my time regaling my tablemates with interesting things I'd found on the Internet. 

So began my weekly commute by aeroplane: 7am flight to London on a Monday, 6pm flight back on the Tuesday evening. An arrangement that was worsened by 9/11, as I then had to check into Edinburgh airport at 5am. The journey back was not so bad as the project office insisted on getting me a taxi at 3pm, which meant I was typically sat at the bar at City Airport within the hour.

Over a period of months, I gradually acclimatised to the journey, the turning point being one journey back north with the project manager, Peter. I remember I was reading a particularly gripping Iain (M) Banks novel at the time and I was dismayed when Peter - also let out of school early - joined me at the bar. We ended up having the whole journey back together, including a blustery landing into Edinburgh, where the 'plane came in pretty much sideways. My desire not to weep in front of the project manager outweighed my need to give vent to my fears and so the recovery began. 

But I only really kicked my anxieties into touch when I landed a contract whereby I would work primarily from home but travel to New York every few weeks. Initially, I was terrified by the prospect of a seven hour flight but the night before the first journey I had dinner with my friends Janet and Nigel, and he recommended a book called 'The da Vinci Code'.

The combination of that book and flying 'Business First' with Continental finally sorted air travel out for me; halfway through the flight I found myself lamenting that there were only three hours to go. I might even have mentioned this to one of the attentive air stewards as they came over to my reclined seat to adjust my blanket and ask if I could force down another glass of wine. 

Years later, this newfound confidence led to me idly speculating to the Minx that it might be great to have a 'plane so that we could fly around the country and into Europe on mini-breaks. Cornwall, I posited, was only a couple of hours away by our speculative light aircraft. We could have a picnic on the way! 

The Minx's evident horror at this proposition didn't prevent me from discussing it with my daughters and it was this reckless conversational gambit that resulted in them buying me a flying lesson for my birthday, this year. Suddenly, I felt as if a bluff had been called. Could I face my demons and get back into a light aircraft?

It would, of course, have been ungrateful to reject the gift and, indeed, imply to everyone that I didn't really want to fly after all, so it was just a question of when. In the end, I decided to go when then Minx was at Glastonbury and would, therefore, be oblivious to my game of airborne Russian roulette. Of all the days when she was away, today was the date that was available for a lesson. 

From the moment the flight was booked I found myself in what I can only describe as a state of stress free anxiety: the prospect of the flight loomed large and near constantly in my mind as did this curiously unalarming prospect that by putting myself in unnecessary danger, I might end up dead. I made sure that my affairs were in order and that I had left Steve (the Technical Director at work) everything he would need to run the business without me but at no point was I actually panicky or in any way upset.

Oddly, it put me in mind of the TV show 'Logan's Run', where the inhabitants on this future city were obliged, as part of a social contract, to commit suicide on their thirtieth birthday. I felt like the model citizen of that world. In fact, the only thing that came close to freaking me out was that I was so oddly calm about it. 

In the end, the Minx threw me by coming back from Glastonbury last night, so I felt that I wanted to tell her what I was doing today and consequently she ended up coming with me to John Lennon airport. We stopped for a coffee a couple of miles away, which was unexpectedly pleasant given that she was so tired and I was in this weird state of putting myself in extreme danger (as some part of me saw it, anyway).

At midday we went to the airport and I filled out the paperwork for the flight, after which I gave the Minx a kiss and then followed the instructor out to the 'plane. It was small, like an old mini, with a similarly analogue dashboard. I folded myself in and then the instructor talked me through the controls as he flicked switches, tapped dials, and turned knobs. And then we taxied out onto the runway as he conducted a partially comprehensible dialogue with air traffic control. 

We sat for a moment, as you do in any 'plane, as the engines accelerated while the aircraft didn't, before he released the brake and we started to roll forward, moving faster and faster along the tarmac and then - informed only by the sudden absence of noise from beneath us - we were up in the sky and flying towards Liverpool. 

The thermals from the streets and buildings made for a bumpy ride but I managed to stay relaxed and calm, figuring if that pilot wasn't panicking then I needn't either. He pointed out a few landmarks and asked me whether I knew that the Liver Building was "hollow". I admitted I didn't so we moved across the skies until we were above it, when he dipped the left wing so I could look down. At that point I must admit I didn't feel too grateful. 

After that we headed out over the Mersey, where the flight was suddenly calmer, and followed the coast down to North Wales. All the time, he told me what he was doing and talked about how the 'plane was behaving, which was nicely distracting for me although I think by this stage I was starting to genuinely relax.

Heading inland, the instructor showed me how the 'plane could turn left or right by banking to thirty degrees before suggesting that I have a go. Reader, I did! And it was fine. I began to feel that perhaps those goggles and leather flying helmet wouldn't have been de trop after all. But then he told me that we could turn more sharply by dipping to sixty degrees, which he promptly did, which was the only point where both my fears and the contents of my stomach threatened to fully present themselves. And then it was my turn again!

By the time he told me to fly us back to Liverpool, I was actually beginning to feel pretty calm; I had reached the stage where the aircraft being horizontal was a cause for celebration in itself. And so we made our way back, me ostensibly in control but him with his hand resting on his control, too. It was difficult to tell the extent he was compensating for my flying but I concentrated like crazy.

But by the time we were circling over Liverpool in a holding pattern, him fully in control by this stage, I was feeling very relaxed. Even the sharp turns with attendant wing dipping were no longer that alarming and as we came into land I was almost at the point of wishing it was something I was doing on my own. 

Would I do it again? I'm not sure. I'm tempted to book a course of a few lessons and see if I end up looking forward to the next one or dreading it. Maybe one day I will be Fenner Pearson, Aviator!

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