TCU
Many thanks for your contribution to the topic plus your excellent set of photos from that period. I have a few photos hidden away somewhere but there are many photos on Flickr showing the Scandinavian visitors plus the variety of visitors to the ATEL maintenance facility.
I remember getting my father to drive me and a few buddies all the way from Southampton to Stansted one Sunday morning in 1980 and when we arrived we were surprised to see a few diversions from London Gatwick which was fog bound. They included a Braniff International Boeing 747 N601BN "the original Big Orange", a Wardair Boeing 747, British Airways B747. It was quite a shock to see three Boeing 747's on the ground together at the same time at Stansted back then. With the only other movement by a Braathens SAFE Boeing 737 my father got bored so we persuaded him to drive us to Luton to do some biz spotting. There wasn't much going on there either so off we went to Heathrow where there was obviously much more to see and my father was much happier.
My father is 83yo now and only the other week he said to me, "do you , remember when you made me drive you and your friends all the way to Stansted all those years ago, I wasn't expecting to do an all dayer dragging you around the airport's". And that was before the M25 was fully completed, it must have been hell for him.
But looking back at it now I'm so thankful that he did and I rightly told him so. I jokingly said "well that's what dad's are for, are you expecting the petrol money now" 😂