Leaving On A Jet Plane

I’ve had a couple of attempts in recent weeks at contributing to the Writer’s Workshop, run by John Holton. These have been tolerably successful so I thought I’d give it another go. John’s post outlining this week’s prompts can be found here, and I’m going with #6 – my first airplane trip – with a little side order of #3 – foods I would gorge on if the calories didn’t count.

This wasn’t my first time in a flying machine, as I had previously enjoyed several helicopter rides at the annual village fair where I grew up. This was a big event, and one year the special attraction was helicopter rides over the Kent countryside, taking off from the neighbouring field. My Dad was one of the organisers, and quite by chance (!) a small boy was needed as weight balance if any parent was accompanied by just one child. I had to help, didn’t I! I was probably about 9 or 10, and the enjoyment of that afternoon has been etched in my mind ever since.

But my first time in an airplane came many years later – I was a late starter. My (now ex-) wife and I took our first holiday overseas in 1979. We knew little of overseas travel at that time – my only previous experience was spending my tip money in the bar at Calais Maritime station during the summer I worked on the cross-Channel ferries, which hardly counts. But we took the plunge and booked ourselves a package holiday. The excitement grew over the summer, as we were taking it late – early September, so that I could celebrate my birthday in a foreign land. How adventurous we were! The big day came, and my dear father-in-law drove us to Luton Airport (famed from the Campari ads, for those of a certain generation) in plenty of time for our flight, which was around 10am, I think. We had to find something to do, so we went to one of the restaurants for a hearty breakfast, not knowing where our next meal would be coming from, or when. Suitably replete, we took our seats on the plane, and I made the mistake of being caught gazing at one of the beautiful stewardesses. Fortunately, it was by her and not my wife, and following a wink of thanks from her I then enjoyed lovely smiles for the rest of the flight.

The first of these came shortly after we had taken off. Following the pre-flight ritual arm waving and pointing – another excuse to train my eyes on that beauty – we were then advised that breakfast would be served. Oh. Should we decline it, saying we had already eaten? But hey, we were paying for this so we might as well get our money’s worth, so we went for it. Guess which stewardess was serving our part of the plane? I managed to consume the meal, which was better than I was expecting, and all went well for the rest of the flight. We even managed to get some duty free booze to enjoy during the holiday in our hotel room – litre bottles, no less, none of that 750ml stuff we got in shops back home.

Where were we going, I think I hear you asking. Well, it was here:

We were enjoying two weeks in Sorrento, on the Bay of Naples. It is a beautiful location, and even in early September it was much hotter than temperatures we were used to back in Blighty. We enjoyed days of sunbathing at the beach – which was on special decks, as the sand was an unpleasant grey colour, having been thrown down a few years before by the nearby Mount Vesuvius. We took several excursions during our stay, one of which was to Pompeii and Vesuvius. It felt incredible to see such an historical sight, and we were able to walk up the volcano and peer into the crater – clearly they weren’t expecting another eruption. Pompeii was amazing, though we humble tourists weren’t allowed to see the more adult parts – those who had been caught in flagrante back in 79AD. We also went on the long day trip, which involved a 7.30 am start for a journey all the way to Rome, arriving back at our hotel around midnight. It was worth it though. I still remember our stop at the Catacombs, on the outskirts of Rome, when my wife – oblivious to what we were seeing – said in her best Essex Girl way “they could get a lot more in here, couldn’t they?”

My nod to John’s prompt #3 is  for one of the things we just had to do while we were in Italy. Two of my favourite foods are pasta and pizza, and we were well served for pasta in the hotel dinners, but pizza was never on the menu. One evening when we were out for a stroll into town we decided that we had to try the real thing, so at around 11pm we found ourselves in a pizzeria knocking back our second meal of the night. That Luton Airport breakfast training was standing us in good stead! We mentioned where we had been to the hotel receptionist when we got back and he told us that we had made a good choice: we had picked his favourite pizzeria in town, and we were happy to confirm that it was indeed very good. Dominos eat your heart out!

I said when I first did one of these that I would try to keep them free of music. But an advert is OK, isn’t it? For anyone who didn’t get the Campari reference earlier, here is a London Girl, Lorraine Chase, at her finest:

Having ventured into YouTube to find that, I can now hear the siren call of the song from which I borrowed the title of this piece. I must resist the temptation, mustn’t I? But, in my best Oscar Wilde fashion, I can’t:

Sorry 🤣