I was on a short flight to Dublin recently and it got me thinking about air travel when I was younger. I didn’t fly until the early 70s when I was in my 20’s. My earliest experience of an airport was in 1964. My cousin Tony got married that summer. I was their bridesmaid so it was very exciting for me. After the reception Tony and Jennifer got changed into their ‘going away outfits’, gathered up a case each and the whole wedding party drove out to Roose Airport near Cardiff. Everyone trooped out onto the tarmac near the plane and waved them off as they went up the steps and boarded the plane for their honeymoon in Jersey. I relate this tale because it’s so completely different to how things are now.
Refreshments on the plane were the same for everyone. You were handed a platter of cold food of some sort and served with a drink which you chose yourself.
Flying in my 20’s, once to Malta and several times to Spain, was also very different to air travel now. Obviously, security is one of the main things which has changed. But as I flew to Dublin recently, I remembered that smoking was allowed on planes then. And so many people smoked! The air was thick with it! I seem to remember that you were seated I. The rear half of the plane if you smoked, in the front half if you didn’t. It made little difference as the whole plane ended up full of smoke. But at that time it was the same everywhere; in offices, cinemas, pubs, cafes, on buses and on trains.
Cabin crew were called air hostesses then (there were no male cabin crew) and it always seemed to me that they changed outfits several times on a flight. They started off, when greeting passengers, in a smart suit, a little hat, a jaunty scarf and matching gloves. At some point the hat scarf and gloves came off. Later, when they came round with food, they would have a uniform tabard/ apron. By the time the plane was landing they were back in the full kit as at the start.
How things have changed!
Childhood Memories of growing up in the 1950s and 1960s. 
I remember my first flight was from Heathrow to Ostend, Belgium, and from there to the Costa Brava in Spain via coach.
The flight, early 60s, was on a DC4 via British European Airways and I recall the interior walls were just bare metal with struts at regular intervals. Leftover from the War? Perhaps!
I don’t recall getting any food and it was a short flight but it was exciting.
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I remember my first flight was from Heathrow to Ostend, Belgium, and from there to the Costa Brava in Spain via coach.
The flight, early 60s, was on a DC4 via British European Airways and I recall the interior walls were just bare metal with struts at regular intervals. Leftover from the War? Perhaps!
I don’t recall getting any food and it was a short flight but it was exciting.
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I remember my first flight was from Heathrow to Ostend, Belgium, and from there to the Costa Brava in Spain via coach.
The flight, early 60s, was on a DC4 via British European Airways and I recall the interior walls were just bare metal with struts at regular intervals. Leftover from the War? Perhaps!
I don’t recall getting any food and it was a short flight but it was exciting.
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Yes, it was so very exciting back then!
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There certainly were stewards
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I seem to have posted the same thing three times – my apologies!
I don’t recall seeing stewards then, or even a few years later when taking trans-Atlantic flights. At the time, the term I recall was stewardesses and it was a glamorous job, not easy to obtain. One woman I knew then referred to herself and her colleagues as “stews” – less of a mouthful, I guess. And, of course, air travel was more civilized then.
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Do you remember that inside the plane was always thick with cigarette smoke? It’s hard to imagine that now!
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That’s right. Pipes and cigars were no t allow we’d.
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