Alida Baxter

Renowned London journalist and author

View from Soho,

Air Travel - The Agony

and The Ecatasy

When I see news footage of airline passengers stranded yet again by snow or strikes, ash clouds or collapsed travel companies, their bodies on Terminal floors like the victims of plague, my longing to fly as much as I used to ceases to be such a bother.

Worst of all in recent times was surely the Nightmare Before Christmas, when foil-wrapped, exhausted near-corpses filled Heathrow and other airports, frozen in tissue tents, distraught and helpless, unable to get information from anyone, as airline staff were nowhere, premium-rate phone calls went unanswered and websites told them nothing useful.

And hardly had Britain got its act together before the entire American East Coast prepared for the New Year by stranding everyone with an air ticket because of blizzards.

Yet I can remember, long ago, arriving for Christmas in a near white-out at a European city, where ice had formed over packed snow and turned the tarmac into a glacier. Disembarking and trying to cross it, I couldn't stay on my feet and had to grab the airport official waiting to see us safely into the Terminal. (In those days it was the airline staff who got cold and tired, not the passengers.) And of course the aeroplanes were taking off and landing with only a fraction of to-day's technology, but immeasurably more customer-care and goodwill.

Now, even when everything's functioning properly, it's hardly attractive. The checking in hours before flying, the endless queues for security, the measuring of carry-on luggage, the tiny quantity of any liquid people may take with them and it's going to get worse. Only days after the chief executive of BAA (the British Airports Authority) called for the cutting and streamlining of security procedures, the authorities went into a fresh meltdown about freight, and everybody was forbidden to approach a plane with a printer cartridge. Soon the only passengers flying will be nudists in chains, and it all looks so hideously depressing to me, because I travelled abroad from the age of four, and for decades even the journey could be glorious.

There are constant references in the media to the nineteen seventies being the time when travelling to other countries took off, for Britain 's population. But whilst that may indeed have been when package holidays boomed, and made booking and arranging a foreign trip easier, it completely ignores the fact that people had been going abroad for ages before that. Not necessarily flying, but certainly leaving the British Isles.

Admittedly travelling ran in my family. For various complicated reasons, as a very young child my mother was stranded in Germany towards the end of the First World War, and got herself and her mother and sister safely out of Berlin by running up to a British soldier screaming, I'm English too! But even that adventure didn't put her off. She spent the holidays of her single life travelling all over the Continent with friends, and particularly loved the Baltic coast, telling me what it was like to pick up amber, as though it were shells, from the beaches there that ran down from the trees. I still have a piece, and my mother showed me how to tell real amber from fake: rub it on any cloth until it's slightly warmed, and then see whether it will pick up a piece of paper as though by magnetic force. The real amber I saw in her hands, and in the window of the fabulous Sac Freres shop in Bond Street , was completely unlike the flimsy, weightless stuff you may see around in less reliable stores and even markets. Beware reconstituted amber, which is made of rejected pieces, pressed together with linseed oil at high pressure and temperature it's usually suspiciously cheap, and whatever anyone tells you, it's a manufactured substance.

But my mother and her friends and sisters didn't just go to the Baltic. Influenced only by which languages they could manage, they swam in foreign lakes, danced to the music of café or village bands, and brought home photographs and indelible memories. In the depths of the Black Forest , my mother was chased by a wild boar and nearly killed. On another trip, staying in an old house in the mountains she was woken in the night, choking, with the terrible sensation of being strangled, and learned only when she hammered on the landlady's door that the bedroom she'd been put in was haunted.

These weren't luxurious holidays, they were scrimped and saved for and involved daunting sea crossings via the Hook of Holland, long journeys in the cheapest class of trains, and taking a chance on finding lodgings with dragon landladies and chamber pots. With no-one to book anything for you, everything depended on initiative, somebody's recommendation, your own distant cousin offering a suggestion, or a neighbour's relation thinking you might like Lake Garda . Going abroad was an adventure, and an escape from everyday life that the young women craved. An aunt of mine who died when I was a child left behind her a leather suitcase so covered with the labels of European resorts that you couldn't see its original surface, and by the time I was around, my mother (having been married and widowed) was desperate to travel again after the war years.

The cheapness of the destination was more important than ever, because there were tight restrictions on the tiny amount of money you could take out of the country. But a family friend had married a Swiss girl, and although the couple lived in London they knew of a chalet that could be rented on a mountainside in a remote village. My mother never seems to have asked about sanitation, difficulties of access (for instance, how high and how steep was the mountain), or anything much beyond the number of rooms and how much it would cost.

Getting the carefully written answer that the rent was practically nothing, my mother set out with a French friend and me. My aunt, working for a tyrant, could only follow later for a shorter stay. I have few memories of the journey the blue light above the bed in the sleeper, and the number of times we were woken by guards hammering on the door to check our passports. I'm not sure, either, whether it was then or later that crowds packed the platforms of the stations we passed through, and one man held a basket with the head of a live goose craning out and honking.

Nor do I have much memory of our first arrival at the chalet my mother may have carried me but the sight of the path leading to it was always the same. The women must have followed the cart that the chalet owners had brought to meet us, for our suitcases, out of the village and down one mountainside to a river, before facing the climb up the next. Then the shine of wooden walls, a chiming clock, and sheets and featherbeds that smelled of flowers.

Incredibly, I have the first postcard that my mother sent to my aunt back in London , saying how wonderful it all was. The post was very quick in those days, and none of the women were remotely concerned by the chalet's remoteness. The amount of walking was stupendous, but they don't seem to have cared that they had to hike to the village and back for anything but the vegetables that grew in the garden and the eggs from the hen run. For meat, milk, cheese, flour, sugar for all basic provisions, they had to climb back and forth. But nothing was rationed, and after the grimness of powdered egg and tiny quantities of any protein, they buttered bread with abandon and believed they were in Heaven.

The clearest memory I have from that first trip is of our return, because my mother took a crate back to London , packed with ham and butter and everything else she could manage, and unpacked it for our friends like a Summer Santa.

And from that holiday I also recall the shrieks of the French friend, who didn't come away with us again. Deliveries of mail were incredibly exciting her husband, initially sending loving letters that she crooned over, suddenly objected to her absence and ran off with someone else, which caused enormous drama, even though it turned out to be temporary. He returned when she did, and she never left him alone for longer than weekends after that. But in the meantime the post could result in prostration, and my mother having to fan her with a handkerchief soaked in cologne.

Over the next few years my mother and aunt tried other places, but were put off by what hadn't been mentioned after first enquiries, like a cesspit being directly under a kitchen sink, so the chalet on the Swiss mountain became the destination we made for most often.

And the long journey there was changed for ever when we started flying. Before the war, airlines had flown to and from Croydon, but during the nineteen forties Heathrow took on the role of London 's Airport its appearance unrecognisable to anyone travelling through it to-day. On our first visits, the airport was just a cluster of low prefab buildings, and it wasn't until you were on board that the really nice things started to happen. Before you took off, sweets and chewing gum were handed around, because chewing stopped your ears popping as the aeroplane gained altitude. Then there was the fact that these were the days before jets and jumbos, so the stewardesses (yet to be called flight attendants) had time for everything and a fairly small number of passengers to deal with, so everybody got a high standard of personal service.

Unforgettable was a man who started shaking with terror shortly after we were in the air. My mother explained to me quietly that he was afraid, which I couldn't understand. Travel sickness, yes, I understood that because I suffered from it badly. But what was there to be afraid of? In the green-faced man's case, everything, apparently. A stewardess wrapped him in a blanket, and the cabin crew took it in turns to sit with him and reassure him throughout the entire flight. And in case you get the wrong idea, he was short and ugly, and this was in economy class.

Sometimes we'd walk across the English tarmac to a little aeroplane, only to be in another country from the moment we embarked. And one in which the stewardesses changed costumes every few minutes! Starting off in formal uniforms, they'd put on a kind of fitted wrap-over to serve food and drink, and remove it to wear something else when they came around to offer sweets again.

If we were going to Switzerland , the enticement might be to travel on the country's national day, because then the atmosphere would be even more festive than usual and special cakes and presents would be on your tray during the flight. The only disadvantage was that when you landed, you found every shop everywhere closed, which was bad news for a group longing for an instant fix of the famous, fabulous national chocolate.

Admittedly there was just one other little hurdle about landing. If we were going to the chalet, our destination was Bern, which had an airport the size of a newsagent's, a café full of sunbathers, and people scything and forking hay right up to the edge of its short runway. All delightful, but the landing strip was encircled by mountains, so the only way for the aeroplane to get down was by tipping from one side to the other as it lost height in dramatic chunks. This generally meant that it wasn't only height that was lost by anyone with motion sickness, but it was over far more quickly than a rough Channel crossing that had often had our little group longing to die.

And then again, flying made the entire experience of the journey so easy. No getting on a train to the Coast, transferring to a boat and then to a train again all we had to do was to get into a taxi for the short ride to the central London air terminal. From there a cheap bus ride took us to the airport.

Now, about this I've run into a complete block on the Internet. According to all the available histories, the West London Cromwell Road Terminal wasn't opened until 1957, but we were taking an airline bus to Heathrow years and years before that. Can I find any details about it no. There's a reference to the fact that you could take a helicopter ride from the London Terminal to the Airport and I know that's right, because my mother and I took it once, just for fun it only cost thirty shillings (one pound fifty pence) and we returned to London by the cheap airline bus. But there's nothing about the early years of the wonderfully convenient link.

Nor could I find any reference to what made airline travel affordable for us and so many others at one time flying to the Continent by night. It meant you were sleepy the next day, but it cost so much less. I have a photograph of me with my mother, taken one morning when we were looking out of the window of an hotel where we'd checked in until the trains started running. That was the downside what to do with yourselves after a night time arrival in a foreign city. We could only go to the railway station buffet when it opened, but as soon as possible we'd have breakfast there before deciding what to do next.

But no matter what time we took them, the actual flights were always a luxurious pleasure, and checking in quick and simple. For a long time that too could be done at the West London Air Terminal, which meant there was absolutely no hassle at the Airport at all.

And the various airline offices all over the West End were so friendly that you got to know the helpful staff. Right up into the late nineteen sixties, I remember going with a friend to a BOAC office in Bond Street , where he not only booked a flight but was allowed to choose a particular seat because he was tall and wanted the comfort of extra leg room!

It has to be understood that, for decades, the passenger was King. It didn't matter that you were flying economy class, that you might be on a night flight you were a customer, and you were looked after. The idea of leaving you to lie on the floor in any circumstances would have been beyond belief.

If by chance there was some kind of hold up, the compensatory treatment you received was rapid and lavish the slightest delay meant you were provided with coffees and snacks, or a meal. And this didn't just happen at Heathrow. I remember our flying to Italy , where the journey had to be broken at Rome before an onward flight to Pisa . At Rome it was discovered that something was wrong with the second aeroplane. Dio mio!!! Everyone was whisked to a fabulous restaurant where we could also bathe in a pool if we wished, and we spent the afternoon there at the airline's expense. An Italian actor adopted us and chatted for hours about the latest films he'd worked on, telling us which Italian directors simply never paid you and how the only safe one to work for was Vittorio de Sica. Nobody else would talk to him because he had a growth of stubble for his latest part and they thought he was a criminal Heaven knows what the American and English passengers believed we were laughing about. But the care given us was the norm.

As Heathrow grew and acquired modern terminals, a delay could mean being put up in one of the airport's best hotels for the night, and even then airline staff grovelled. By the time I was in my late teens I was flying more and more, often alone, and took it for granted that I'd move through airports quickly. One New Year when I hadn't noticed the call for my flight back to London , I was sought out and rushed to the aeroplane on my own little bus. And returning from a trip to friends in Spain , a smitten stranger threw himself on the mercy of check-in staff in order to swop flights and seats and travel beside me and was allowed to, at no extra charge!!!

In the nineteen seventies I was married and my husband got a job abroad. Until he found a house, I commuted to see him, in addition to taking holidays. Stopped by somebody conducting a survey, I was asked how many times I'd gone through Heathrow that year and couldn't remember sixteen? Twentysix? And always the same care, always the same service. The only time I had a bad experience was when flying out of Gatwick, but even then the delay resulted in being taken to an hotel for the day. I have to admit to being prejudiced before I ever set foot or suitcase in that airport, though: for Londoners like me, who regard anywhere North of Marble Arch as slightly alarming, Heathrow, within easy taxi reach, is the natural choice. And taxi drivers, the most reliable informants on any subject, told me that Gatwick flights were always late.

When I was divorced and my books were doing well, I joined the world of author tours and research trips, and my carbon footprint took a gigantic stride. I was introduced to first class and even VIP lounges, and believe me there's nothing to make you feel cared for like having a serf not only pour you champagne but carry your hand luggage. And all that on top of having flown long haul in a bed!

My publisher was so helpful that he drove me to Heathrow whether I was travelling on business or not, although he knew when I was just joining someone for a romantic holiday. The only downside being that he believed airlines would always wait for me, so he'd brake to a screeching halt outside the Terminal as the last call for the flight was echoing around the concourse. But with no queues and swift service, I'd sink gratefully into my seat shortly after and silently congratulate him on being right.

And so it went on, my love affair with air travel. I stopped writing books, but I didn't stop flying, and if I went abroad with my now ageing mother, the care she received was enviable. It was arriving back in London that was dreary, so that plans for the next trip were always in my mind.

For the latter part of the 'eighties and the early 'nineties, my little family needed constant care and couldn't be left, and by a nasty stroke of fate, when that was all over and I was booked on my first flight for five years (the longest period without flying since I'd begun boarding aeroplanes, as a child) something appalling happened to my spine, and I couldn't travel. What I thought would last for months became longer and longer, and two operations and eighteen years later I still watch the vapour trails in the sky with an aching heart.

Oh, the lift of the aeroplane as it left the tarmac. Looking down on the cloud layer, and seeing the peaks of the Alps in the distance. Treating yourself to Duty Free perfume and cognac, and swapping stories with other passengers. A man who showed me the grapes he was taking back to London , still dusted with the black sand of the Bay of Naples . A woman returning from her first holiday with a new husband and wondering whether she'd made a terrible mistake.

I miss it almost beyond bearing, until I see another news bulletin and the queues snaking in coils all over the airports, or hear the terrible stories of what passengers are put through. The absolute worst was the recent account in i of what was done to Nigel Lawson. Told to remove his shoes, he explained that he had to sit down to do so, having had trouble with his legs, and surgery. When a chair was eventually virtually thrown at him, he complained to the security officer about his attitude. Did this result in an immediate apology from someone in charge? No, a senior official demanded that Mr. Lawson hand over his passport and rang ahead to the airline he was due to fly with, telling them not to allow him on the aeroplane, and actually lying by saying that he had not passed through security.

Of course it was all eventually sorted out Mr. Lawson got on a later flight and a complaint to BAA resulted in the reimbursement of his extra fare. But that was surely the least he was due, and that such a disgraceful incident should have happened at all is staggering. If Nigel Lawson can be treated like that, how about all the people who haven't been Chancellor of the Exchequer, and aren't life peers? What chance of courtesy have ordinary mortals got?

Admittedly this occurred at Gatwick, never top of my list, but airport security is controlled by BAA and isn't supposed to have different standards of service at different locations. So this could have happened anywhere, including my favourite departure point, Heathrow.

It was always my ambition to fly on Concorde, but that sensational aeroplane has gone. And it seems to me that the whole ethos of flying as a wonderful experience has gone with it. I look at the footage, at the trudging lines of submissive passengers willing to offer up their belts and shoes but not even, apparently, getting respect in return, and I can hardly believe what I'm seeing. Security may be necessary, but so is politeness and consideration, and once upon a time airports and airlines offered that by the ton.

Now, if something goes wrong, it seems the public are left to take care of themselves. Tents, for which they should be grateful, or the plain floor await them. And their misery isn't necessarily over if they survive any delays, manage to pass the security checks with sufficient subservience and actually board an aeroplane budget airlines are ready to charge them not only for in-flight food and drink but even to use the lavatories!

Yes, I do still miss flying, but not the flying that people endure these days. Passengers put up with it in order to get out of the country, just as, in order to get to work, they put up with a daily commute on an impossibly crowded, delayed and expensive train. But I have my memories, as will many others, including airline executives. Wouldn't it be a fantastic idea if somebody decided to reinvent the earlier age of aeroplane travel, the golden age of polite service, when airlines and airports regarded it as their duty to look after passengers, and care for them?

The Orient Express was reinvented, to recreate the golden age of train travel, so why not the same rethink for flying? And it's not a question of cost, but of attitude. I remember how cheap the flights we took could be, and how kind the cabin crew and ground staff were, and I don't think treating the public like human beings and not cattle is too much to ask.

© Alida Baxter

Independent surveyors

If you truly do want an independent expert opinion from a surveyor with regard to building surveys, structural surveys, structural reports, engineers reports, specific defects report, dilapidations, home buyers reports or any other property matters please contact 0800 298 5424 for a surveyor to give you a call back.

Commercial property surveyors

If you have a commercial property, be it leasehold or freehold, then you may wish to look at our Dilapidations Website at www.DilapsHelp.com and for Disputes go to our Disputes Help site www.DisputesHelp.com .

We hope you found the article of use and if you have any experiences that you feel should be added to this article that would benefit others, or you feel that some of the information that we have put is wrong then please do not hesitate to contact us (we are only human).

The contents of the website are for general information only and is not intended to be relied upon for specific or general decisions. Appropriate independent professional advice should be paid for before making such a decision.

All rights are reserved the contents of the website are not to be reproduced or transmitted in any form in whole or part without the express written permission of buildingsurveyquote.co.uk