FLYING - THEN AND NOW

1) My first flight was from Paris to Portsmouth in 1959. The pilot arrived late, with the stewardess. He wore a leather coat, old trousers, and wellington boots. The stewardess had holes in her stockings and wore mirrored sunglasses. They both went into the cockpit without a word.

2) When we were (a) __________________ the English coast, the stewardess appeared in the cabin. She was still wearing the sunglasses, but her lipstick was smudged. ‘Southend? Anyone to Southend?’ she shouted. The boy in front of me put up his hand. The DC-3 suddenly landed. The boy was shown the door and he (b) __________________ down onto the grass field, and we took off again. The stewardess went back into the cockpit. I remember thinking at the time that flying wouldn't always be like this.

3) And I was right. In 30 years, international travel has completely changed, and the world has (c) __________________ a global village. Crossing the world is as easy as (sometimes easier than) getting from one side of the city to another. The world of air travel has developed into a huge industry.

4) The airports themselves are remarkable places: Paris's strange and space-like Charles de Gaulle, or Dallas (Fort Worth) with its Texan vastness. There are airports which are almost (d) __________________ with the number of arrivals and departures, like Chicago's O'Hare or Tokyo's Haneda, and there are deserted airports like Tanzania's Kilimanjaro, lying beneath the snows of the great mountain, waiting for the tourists who have never arrived.

5) But probably one of the greatest of them all is London's Heathrow, which (e) __________________ the list of both international flights and international passengers. In 1989, it handled 355,000 flights and over 38 million passengers with 57 million items of luggage. It has (f) __________________ into a city in its own right, employing 53,000 people full time. Like all the great airports, it dates back only to last days of the Second World War.

6) The first runway was (g) __________________ on the flat land near the village of Staines in 1944. It was the place of historic interest. One of the most important Anglo-Saxon temples is buried under Terminal Two, and the village of Heathrow is now under the main car park. The airport has ghosts. A Saxon prince has been (h) __________________ near the ponds, where he drowned, and an outlaw rides through the cargo sheds, with a three-cornered hat and a black horse. Heathrow has been (i) __________________ as an international airport since 1 January 1946, when a British South American Airways Lancastrian took off into the morning mists on a flight to Buenos Aires. In February 1952, the Queen arrived from Entebbe to set foot on British soil for the first time as monarch.

7) Since those early days, constant building has been necessary to deal with the growth of air traffic and the demands of air travellers. However, Heathrow (j) __________________ the same problems as all big airports - too many people, and too much crime. It is the centre-point of the great air routes between Europe and North America in one direction, and between Europe and the Gulf, Africa, and Asia in the other. It is alive with all the citizens of this strange world, rich and poor, honest and dishonest. It is the Airport International par exellence.