A flight best forgotten

My first trip, with a child, was to England in 1975.  My husband, Dennis, had been selected to be on a naval course in Portsmouth and these courses can take anything up to 11 months and 3 weeks. Their policy was that wives and families were not paid to travel and live together on an overseas posting if it were less than 12 months. Needless to say, most courses were set under this time frame.

I did not mind the months of separation while he was serving on a ship at sea, but when he was to be onshore for up to 10 months without me and our firstborn daughter, Natalie, of 18 months, we agreed she and I would follow from New Zealand, two weeks after he had arrived in England for the course.

We sold our car to buy the tickets and intended to live off his pay while there and hopefully find cheap accommodation. Being young and still a bit “wet behind the ears”, we kept having farewell parties and such right up until the night before he left and the next morning he was picked up from our naval house and whisked to the airport to go on the long and tiring journey to England. This behaviour was to cause more problems down the track.

I took my time sorting our luggage out, as we were going in January 1975 on one of the first direct flights from New Zealand to England. Baggage allowance was very strictly adhered to as we had no money for excess, so 20 kilos would have to cover both baby and me.  Considering nappies (no disposables then), toys and winter clothes for her and clothes for me, this did not allow too much choice or error.

My parents came up from Wellington to have precious time with us and to help Natalie and me to get organised and to the airport on the day we left. The night before we were to fly out, Dennis rang to say he’d left his winter uniforms behind and that I needed to bring them in my luggage. The uniforms were very heavy, so out went all my clothes. I travelled in a long woollen skirt, a lightweight blouse and boots and took a shirt and sweater in my hand luggage to change into upon arrival. That’s all I had to cover the sweltering Auckland summer in January to snow on arrival at Heathrow UK.

My parents later told me how anxious they were watching me go through to customs with baby-on-hip, blissfully unaware of the stress to come for a journey of this magnitude.  I was so excited about the prospect of living in and seeing England. 

Each leg of that long journey was tracked by my mother, ringing the airport every few hours to see where we were at. In the end, they said, “We haven’t lost a plane yet, your daughter will be fine” and she just replied, “This better not be your first.” I only learned of her panic much later on.

We arrived in Los Angeles and were immediately transferred from our plane to a British plane, which I thought was odd as this was meant to be a “direct flight” to eliminate the need to change airlines. We were all very tired and just getting through the hours.  Natalie was a dream of a child passenger and gave me something to do and focus on to wile away the hours. We took off very slowly and took a whole runway to lift off, we were a very full plane. 

With a feeling of uncertainty I said to the chap sitting beside me that I thought that take-off was weird, he agreed, and as we climbed slowly the plane started to rattle and shake and bits of luggage started falling out of the compartments above.  The rugby boys behind us who had been singing loudly quietened down as the captain of the plane came over the loudspeaker to say that our plane’s air pressure system has failed and that we would not be able to fly any higher than the altitude we were at, as the plane would begin to crush. 

We had to fly around emptying the fuel tanks so we could return to Los Angeles airport and land. The Captain said the Air controller had asked him to fly out over the Pacific while doing this but he had refused.  He was anxious that they might not get it back in time from over the water, whereas if we were over the city they would be more vigilant. He also said he would have the communication system open to us so that we could all hear all the conversations with the Air controller. 

You could have heard a pin drop as we went round and round in circles throwing fuel over the unsuspecting population below. There was a lot of swearing and yelling by our pilot as he was as scared as the rest of us. Blissfully for me, Natalie had fallen asleep on my lap for which I was very grateful.  Talking to the chap beside me, I found out that he was off to Scotland for his mother’s funeral and rather hoped he wasn’t going to be seeing her earlier than anticipated… He kept me on a level keel with his interesting sense of humour and chatter.  

We landed very roughly, best described as a White Knuckle Landing. As we filed off the plane, the captain shook every one of us by the hand and said he would personally oversee the problem to the plane. We waited more hours in the airport until about 11 at night when they decided to place us in a hotel. However no food yet and I needed something for Natalie, so I badgered the kitchen staff to make her a sandwich.  I rinsed out the clothes we were wearing and went to bed in the early hours of the morning. 

We were woken at 8am and put on a bus, I thought to go to the airport. But no, they drove us around Los Angeles for about 6 hours before taking us to the airport. We were all a bit zombie-like at this stage. Getting onto the plane we were again met by our Captain, reassuring us that he would not be taking off were he not a hundred percent sure everything was fixed. I do remember flying that plane, from my seat, for the first hour before relaxing enough to sleep, eat, then sleep again. 

When we arrived at Heathrow I was greeted by my husband. He looked like he hadn’t slept for days – always what you want to hear when you feel exhausted. He had been given no information about our delay and was beside himself with worry. But the first thing he said to me was “What the hell have you done to your hair!?” I had completely forgotten dying my hair a fairly bright red to lift my spirits before leaving New Zealand and I had imagined arriving in England looking very glamorous with this new colour. No such luck – rings under my eyes, white shell-shocked skin and lank red hair. But Natalie was still a bright and perky 18-month-old toddler… ready to play with her dad.

by Cherilyn Davidson

Featured photo by Jessica Papini.
Supportive comments are welcomed.

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