Episode at Entebbe
My eldest daughter, Linda , was flying with British Caledonian, later British United and I met up with her, once or twice, when stopping over at Entebbe. The crews of both companies stayed at the same Hotel, the famous,or quite often the infamous, Queen Vic. I was not there when she was amongst the British crew who found themselves within earshot of a Sabena crew on the lawn of the Hotel swimming pool. Linda went to school in Belgium and is fluent in Flemish and French so she understood every word of what the Sabena chaps were saying including quite graphic descriptions of what they would like to do with some of the British Stews.
She didn't say a word until she got up to leave and then stopped by their side and in the lowest Bruxelloise patois which consists of a weird mixture of both languages proceeded to tell the flabbergasted Romeos that they would'nt last five minutes with the weakest of her friends and told them why. When she stalked off she told me that they stood up and applauded her ! She was not so lucky when she was involved in a horrific accident in a Volkswagen Beetle returning to the Hotel after a crew night out in the nearby Kimpala. They crashed into one of the stone columns guarding the entrance to the Hotel. I don't know how many were in the Beetle but Linda was sitting on the knees of the First Officer and was thrown through the windscreen. The first officer broke both his legs and to my knowledge never flew again. She was taken to the only Hospital in Kampala where there were no sheets on the beds but, by a wonderful stroke of luck,was being visited by a visiting Bitish surgeon who so skilfully stitched up her face wounds that there are no scars to be seen to this day. She was not so lucky with the terrible damage to her legs which was left unattended for too long and shows the scars as proof. Once again she was lucky as the crew at the Hotel was captained by one of the original British Pilots Charles W...t . All of the original 30 British pilots and their wives were considered by the children to be the Uncles and Aunts that they had left behind in England and Uncle Charles was one of them. H went straight to Kampala when he heard the news and saw that Linda was looked after. It was in the middle of the night and a taxi driver refused to take him back to Entebbe when he saw his bloodstained shirt after he had visited Linda as he thought that he had been in a fight and did not want to get involved. The Caledonian manager wanted to send her straight back to Gatwick where she shared a flat with four other stewardesses in nearby Reigate but Charles and another "Uncle" Jack E...s ,who was taking the next Sabena plane back to Brussels made sure tha she was on the flight so that she could be looked after by us. The Sabena staff were marvellous and I never ceased to be so thankful that I worked for a Company who regarded each of it's employees as one of a very large family. My next episode will be with that same Captain Charles W...t as we were both told we were to be promoted from D.C7C's to 707's but that the course would take about six months and all studying would have to be done in our spare time as they could not spare us so we would have to take all our books with us on long stops away and really get down to it.