Ed, my story is like a bonsai version of yours.
Nineteen year old Hydro, about to join the army for officer and pilot training, Flying from Adelaide to Sydney on a TAA 727. Chatting to the late 30ish lady next to me pre take off, she informs me that she's in charge of all the hostesses (as they were then called). After take off, instead of heading east, we circled over St Vincents gulf and the pilot advised that they had an undercarriage problem. The lady immediately hit the call button and when the hostess came running, ordered two scotches, one was for her and one for me.
After a pass over the tower and circling to dump fuel, we had the gentlest landing I've ever had, with the nose gear kissing the runway at the end of the landing roll. We were collected by busses and returned to the terminal, where we pax were fed a light meal while waiting for a replacement aircraft, a Viscount, to be sent from Melbourne. I don't know where my new friend ate.
On the replacement flight we were again seated together, and again, she ordered scotches for us. She explained that the problem was that they couldn't get a green light when retracting the nosegear, and then couldn't get a green when trying to extend it again. Apparently the extender hydraulic strut had suffered some damage.
She then asked if I'd like to visit the cockpit. Of course I said I would, so she escorted me to forward and introduced me to the tech crew. I spent the remainder of the flight there as they explained the systems to me, what they were doing (not much), and chatted generally about aviation (I'd been a QF apprentice until I left to join the Army.) I returned to my seat just before landing, thanked her profusely and expressed my hopes that we'd meet again. OK, so she was twice my age, but hey, hostesses of any vintage had a certain reputation, unmerited I'm sure, among teenaged boys. Sadly, we never did meet again.