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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

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