Children Travelling Alone
What a mamby pamby society, full of useless rules that frighten good people. As a child aged 11 years in 1961, I flew from Manchester to Entebbe with one of the following EAA , BEA and possible BOAC as an UM. Some of the flights were known as lolly pop specials as it was expats kids returning home for the holidays. On the flights from Heathrow were 'aunties', mature ladies who looked after the little ones, and you did sit next to adults who out of normal behavior kept an eye on you as every one should today, but who now have a fear of doing or saying anything in case they get verbally abused or accused of some thing else.
I travelled alone from boarding school in Gargrave ,Yorkshire, by train with changes at Manchester and sometimes Preston, to my grandmothers in Blackpool, left my school stuff and the next day went alone by train to Manchester, bus to Ringway, and then check in staff told you where to meet them in the departure lounge at a given time. I then flew to Heathrow changed planes and flew to Entebbe, with stops at one or two of the following Rome, Paris , Munich and Athens and at the end of the holidays I made the return journey. I did this until 1969 as an UM as it was beneficial to do so if the aircraft was delayed for any reason. I met lots of adults who were not frightened of talking to me and me to them as normal caring human beings, who often watched to make sure I had gone to the correct platform, along with the railway and airport staff.
Perhaps my many school friends and I were lucky none of them ever said they had been molested, some moaned about the miserable person they had been sat next to, but all of us felt safe. In today's world Social Services would have had a field day, airlines wouldn't have let me travel so I wouldn't have seen my dad for two years , and my parents branded neglectful for making me travel alone. I met lots of good people, people cared, but today as I thankfully come to the end of my teaching career, I wonder if we will ever be able to give the freedoms to children I had in being able to sit and talk to a stranger, travel and roam without fear. Sad world in many ways, made sadder by the many children who cannot behave and who no longer know that big word NO, but who know there rights but not responsibilities, and by rules and regulations that say they can't fly as an UM till they are 14 or talk to a male adult sat next to them.