A very lucky Escape!
I had my first bad experience flying for the very first timeout of Manston Airport on an Air Ferry Ltd DC4 (Invicta Airways?) in the 1stweek of June 1966. We had booked a11-day package holiday with a Northern travel agent ‘Lyons Tours’ to BarcelonaAirport, mainly because they were cheap! We were booked into the Hotel Acapulco in Calella on the CostaDorada. Most of the holiday makersappeared to be Northerners. As we flewover the Pyranee’s I was fascinated by seeing small peaks of mountain top’ssticking thru the clouds. That is untilthe plane suddenly dropped like a stone through the clouds, with a feeling likeyour stomach was still up there above cloud level! The stewardess and several passengersstanding in the gangway fell over and the passengers let out a scream. The stewardess recovered quickly and shouted‘Seatbelts on!’ The plane shuddered to astop and gradually started to climb again. A laborious process and you could feel both the wings flapping, almostlike a bird! There was no visibilitythrough the porthole windows because we had dropped quite a way into theclouds. Remembering the peaks that stuckup above cloud level I looked at my 22-year old wife and daughter and I said ‘Ithink we are going to die!’ We justcuddled up. After what seemed ages in thegradual ascent the plane suddenly entered clear sky again. The pilot then explained over the intercomthat the plane had entered a ‘vacuum’ that resulted in the sudden drop. We had a terrific first Spanish holiday andmade friends with many of the northern families, although the apprehension ofhomeward flight did pop into my head on more than one occasion. As we all sat in the open air bar in theearly morning hours of departure day we agreed that we enjoyed the holiday somuch that we will all meet up again at the same Hotel Acapulco with Lyons Toursagain in the first June flight in 1967.
Given that hardly any of the hotel staff or shopkeepersspoke English I was determined to impress the group and immediately startingstudying Spanish by reading a brilliant book (Madrigals Magic Key to Spanish)and buying a linguaphone Spanish language course. I studied virtually morning noon and nightright up until around the point where Lyons Tours produced their 1967brochure. I had phoned the travel agentsalmost daily asking if the brochure had arrived and when they confirmed they’dreceived it I immediately asked one of our delivery couriers to pop in and getit for me. I had completed the bookingform in record time just before lunch for the identical Hotel Acapulco holidaydeparting Saturday evening on the 3rd June 1967. At lunchtime I jumped on my bike (didn’t havea car then) and peddled like mad for the 3-mile trip to town centre travelagents to get in quick and secure my booking. As I arrived at the large town centre roundabout a very strange thoughtcame into my head ‘Go home and tell Joan!’ I never ever consulted my wife on finances, so I just shrugged it offand having passed the exit point cycled back around the roundabout. I did that 3-times before, for peace of mind,before deciding that as it was only 5-minutes pedalling away I would informher. On arrival I just dumped my bike onour front lawn and opened the letter box. I saw her standing in the kitchen, so I just shouted out that ‘I’mbooking the holiday!’ and jumped back on my bike. As I pedalled away she opened the front doorand called me back. She started talkingabout a guy a few doors away who sold cheap HP repossession cars. I couldn’t believe it and I was furious! I told her I wasn’t going to waste all thatSpanish language studying for all those months. She argued I was being selfish because if I took driving lessons andbought a car we would be able to travel about independently and that a Spanish11-day holiday would soon be forgotten. In my heart I knew she was right, so I gave in and after speaking to theguy who did the HP repossession deals I almost shed a tear as I tore up thebooking form. It was a disaster! We borrowed money from a finance company tobuy the car that I had paid for and it was a stolen ringer! The police recovered it from the neighbour’sgarage to pass back to the rightful owner
On the late afternoon of 3rd June 1967 I said to Joan‘Do you know where we would be on our way to now if you hadn’t haveinterfered?’ She got a bit tearful, asshe then started saying that she wondered if some of the people who we made thepact with were sitting there saying that Joan & Stan are a bit late. Just before midnight as I got up to turn offthe TV the screen it changed to a large black & white ‘NEWSFLASH’ warningand a newsreader solemnly said that there had been a plane crash at Perpignanin France with no survivors. Joan lookedat me and I said ‘No way! There arehundreds of night flights, it wasn’t our one.’ Nothing in Sunday papers, but Monday nationals all carried the story ofthe crashed Air Ferry DC4 and it then dawned on me how lucky I was to haveresponded to that voice in my head as I rushed to book that strickenflight. I often looked at our 1966Spanish holiday photo’s and wondered how many people did keep the pact we allmade?