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Aviation Memories
David King
Surrey Branch Secretary
On Thursday 26th May 2016 24 members from 11 Region
visited British Airways Heritage Museum at British Airways
Speedbird Centre Headquarters at Heathrow.
T
he visit had been arranged by Surrey
Member Tony Suter. We met prior to the
event at a nearby pub for some lunch
and refreshments, however upon arrival we were
informed that they had severe staff shortages
and that the Chef was off sick with “food
poisoning” and that they could not cater for 24
of us. They did suggest another venue. So we all
scattered in our various vehicles in all directions
to find the venue just like when we had lost
contact with a suspect vehicle in the job ,some
did lose contact but at least we all met up at the
RV point at the British Airways Speed Bird centre
as arranged (oh the joy of relocating the target
and regaining eye ball)
We were we welcomed at the Museum by Paul
Jarvis the manager and his deputy Jim Davies.
Jim gave us an introduction tour and slide show
of the 100 year old history of Commercial flying
of British Airways from its beginning
.The first slide was a welcome to
British Airways for the IPA and
showed Concorde when it first
landed at Heathrow in 1972, The
slide had a police vehicle guarding
Concorde. One of our members
Richard Lock was serving at
Heathrow at that time and to the
surprise of all present was able to
give the registration number etc
of the police vehicle. We were also
joined at this point by 2 very attractive and new
stewardesses from BA who were also interested
in the presentation by Jim.
Jim Davies took us through the beginning of
Imperial Airways first commercial flight from
London to Paris in 1919 ,the pilot sat outside in
the Dehavilland 9b ,whilst the passengers sat
in luxury seats and were served food and drinks
on bone china. Imperial Airlines continued to
operate out of Croydon Airport right
up to the second world war until
it became BEA in 1946 when it
eventually located to what we now
all know as Heathrow, together with
the overseas airline BOAC. further
amalgamations continued until the
airline became British Airways .
We were all enthralled with the
slides and items on display at the
museum on the way people travelled
in the early years of overseas flying
including using flying boats to Egypt
for example and the luxury sleeping
arrangements together with the
cooking arrangements for these
long haul flights at that time. Jim
and Paul’s knowledge of flying with
British Airways was outstanding. The
museum was thoroughly enjoyed by
all as well as the magnificent British
Airways Speedbird Centre.
An IPA pennant was presented
to Paul and Jim as a token of
appreciation for such an interesting
talk and allowing us to visit the
museum and view the wonderful
collection. Member Dave Stamp
took the opportunity to try out what
it is like to fly first class as can be
seen in the photo, most probably
his and the vast majority of us only
time we will get to try out first class,
unfortunately though we were not
served champagne on this occasion
by the 2 stewardesses
Dave Stamp trying out first class
POLICE WORLD
Vol 61 No. 3, 2016
26
Article