Some years ago, I would need to check an old passport to be more precise, I flew on an airline that had an unfortunate history. In one day in 1968 they lost three Comet 4C’s, two Caravelles, a Boeing 707, and their only Vickers VC10 and Viscount.
The airline is Middle East Airlines and they were destroyed in an Israeli raid on Beirut airport. I remember one thing about my flight. It was the last time I flew on a ‘plane that permitted smoking, albeit only in the seats towards the rear.
Rupert Hart-Davis had not flown across the Atlantic since 1952, before the advent of jets. In December 1961 he describes his next trip, this time on a Boeing 707. He went to the Victoria Air Terminal at 9.30 am for an 11.00 am flight to New York. The terminal had been opened in 1939 as Empire Terminal to serve passengers on Imperial Airways taking ‘planes from Croydon Airport and flying-boats from Southampton Docks. Imperial Airways merged with British Airways becoming BOAC, flying-boats stopped in 1950, Croydon Airport closed in 1959 and Victoria Air Terminal is now offices occupied by the National Audit Office. It is Grade II listed. Here are pictures from English Heritage’s collection of the exterior and the foyer.
RH-D had crossed the Atlantic on a liner earlier in the year but mislaid his vaccination certificate without which he would be put in quarantine for fourteen days upon arrival. He was able to get re-vaccinated at the terminal. It cost ten shillings and sixpence and took five and a half minutes. The ‘plane left from London Airport, I think Heathrow as that was used by BOAC. It is surprising that it was possible to check-in at Victoria only one and a half hours before take-off.
Comfortably settled in his first class seat, sitting beside the President of the Shell Oil Company of America and with two tranquillisers to calm his fear of flying, it is time for lunch.
I consumed two large Bourbon whiskies as an aperitif, then caviare (sic), lamb chops and beans, fruit tart, Stilton, three glasses of claret, coffee and brandy … I have also been able to smoke my pipe with impunity.
Those were the days. This post recalls my first crossing of the Atlantic in a RAF Hercules. Here is a more recent picture of the old Empire Terminal.
