Last call for Passenger Cowardy Custard
In years gone by, many expressed surprise that the world’s most home-loving, aeroplane-hating person would distance herself two hours away from home….that’s two hours if travelling 400mph at 35,000 feet. It is still a puzzle to even me that this Yorkshire lass decided to live in Portugal. My geography isn't great and I'd never even heard of Oporto so maybe I thought it was just a bus-ride away.
However, for several years I was often spotted
at assorted British airports heading along the carpeted tube as if it were my
journey to the Pearly Gates. A smiling
cap and polyester-suit-clad flight attendant would greet me with her 163rd ‘good
evening, welcome aboard’. I’d be momentarily pacified, reasoning that, ‘it’s her job, she wouldn’t get on if we were gonna die’. I'd clutch at straws basically, not
to mention the arm rest and my surprised neighbour’s hand. There is a child in row D. Well, that’s OK then. God wouldn’t let a
little child die. (Parents on my flight flight
actually thanked me. My fearful sobbing mesmerised surrounding youngsters and made them forget their own fears and
popping ears.) The air turbulence would actually shake the plane slightly less than my own quaking body. En route from San Francisco to Hawaii, I
recall a lady leaning over and soothingly saying, ‘your first
time dear?’. ‘No’, I replied, ‘my 27th’. I hated it but it was a means to an end, turns out Oporto is 'overseas'. My pre-flight departure lounge
dilemma was always which liquor I would order to drink myself into oblivion and thus block out the reality of impending doom. The perfect solution. Until, of course, my
‘reasoning’ brain cell would wake up. When we
plummeted Atlantic-ward in a ball of flames, I didn't want to be so drunk that I was too busy entertaining passengers with my rendition of ‘New York, New York’ to
secure my life jacket in a double bow, remove my stilettos and shove a whistle
into my mouth, now did I?!
Do I still fly? Of course I do, I might be scared but let's face it, you need to get out of this country from time to time. And of course, my souvenir from Portugal means I'm still often spotted at Gatwick queuing up at the Oporto check in. Then I get back in the car and head back up the M1. My brave, brave young son, with none of his mum's silly hang-ups, boards a plane like he's boarding a bus and smiles a nonchalant smile as the flight attendant says, 'good evening, welcome aboard.'
