More tales of India
The "Bread and Butter" route in India was Bombay -Calcutta and Air India possessed the sole right to this route. The line concessions were renewed yearly by the Directorate of General Aviation (DGA) in Delhi. JRD, as Mr Tata was always known ,phoned me one evening to tell me that I was to take him to Delhi next day for the annual meeting for the renewal of the routes. I asked him if we were night stopping and he told me that we would be returning the same day . When we were going out to the plane I was surprised to see a large number of suitcases being loaded on to it. I said to JRD "I thought that we were only staying the day". He put his arm around my shoulders and gently said "You really don't know India do you, Reg ? " The suitcases were full of rupees and the one with the most suitcases came back with the best routes. We came back with "Bombay-Calcutta " intact.
I was sitting in the old DC3 one early morning , waiting to check the Captain on the Calcutta route when into the aircraft came JRD and politely requested the passengers to disembark. All 21, a full load, did so without demur. He then breezed into the cockpit and said "We're off to Poona to the races. You've just got time to get your Wives to come as Hostesses" and off we went to Poona.
Another time I was assigned to take the assassin of Mahatma Ghandhi to Delhi for his trial. I was not to appear in any photographs. The First Officer, duly promoted, was the one who appeared in the "Times of India".
The stewardesses in India were always from very good families, generally very beautiful, but with few exceptions, not very worldly. As in all airlines, new stewardesses were the subject of intensive leg pulling. One gag was for the First Officer to hide amongst the baggage which, on the Dakota, was always stowed behind the cockpit adjacent to a small cargo door on the left side near the nose. After take-off the Captain would call the poor girl to the cockpit and ask her to send the First Officer up. When she said that she could'nt find the F.O. in the back the Captain would tell her in no uncertain terms that it was her job to make sure that all the crew was aboard as well as the passengers and that now he would have to fly all the seven and a half hours to Calcutta by himself and that it was her fault.... At the destination the First Officer would quickly go out through the small luggage door, run round to the main door as the stewardess was opening it, collapse into her arms saying "It was a long run but I made it."
On another occasion the stewardess would come into the cockpit to take the two empty plastic coffee cups from the pilots. Unlike modern pressurised aircraft, the DC3's side windows could be and frequently were opened. Once as she leant across the Captain to open the window to throw the cups out, he knocked her hand away and shouted "Don't ever do that. Can't you see that the other window is open ? If you had opened my window there would have been a terrible vacuum and we would all have been sucked out of the cockpit " Later on, the Captain put the aircraft on "George" as the automatic pilot is affectionately called,
opened both the windows, pressed the stewardess call button then he and the First Officer, hid amongst the bags in the baggage just behind the cockpit. The poor girl came up to find an empty cockpit, both windows open and the aircraft flying serenely along on it's own . Hysterics were usually the outcome of that one.
Another favourite was the "Toilet Flush". Remember this was India were only "Untouchables" cleaned toilets. On her first flight the Captain would ask a new stewardess if she had been briefed on flushing the toilet. Absolutely horrified" she would answer "No" The Captain would point to a large lever across from the side of his seat. "Whenever a passenger comes out of the toilet, you must come up here and pump this lever twenty times to flush the toilet " he would gravely tell her and the unlucky girl would come up every ten minutes or so , blushing furiously, hiding her face and pump away at what was the hydraulic lever, used to boost the system and used for emergencies.
To end this I will tell you that quite a few years later, my eldest daughter, Linda, became a Stewardess with the late lamented British Caledonian. I was still flying and warned her of all the tricks that were liable to be played upon her but was not prepared for what actually happened. Her first flight was a night stop in Edinburgh, They duly arrived quite late and she went up to her allotted room and was very pleased to find that it was a very nice one. She was very tired and went straight to bed. She was woken a bit later by the phone and it was the Captain.. "I am so sorry to disturb you but they seem to have given you my room " he started to say when she interrupted him "My Father is an Airline Pilot and he warned me of this sort of thing "She said and slammed the phone down. Next morning when the crew met for breakfast the Captain went up to her " I trust that you had a good night's sleep " he said " I'd like to meet your Father ". In actual fact we did meet at Entebbe and had a good laugh about it. Reg.