Still on a mission to identify the first aircraft I flew on, I went to see my parents today and asked my father if he had and recollections of the Datapost trip to Edinburgh. He couldn't recall anything apart from the stuff I already knew, but he did say that he had kept a load of newspaper clippings from his year as Mayor and there might be something in there.......
So hardly daring to hope I started to wade through them and within five minutes couldn't believe my luck when I came up with the following clipping
Unfortunately the newspaper photographer (or his editor) had successfully managed to either exclude in the original photo (or cropped during editing) the two bits of the aircraft that would have given me the identity through the registration or the name on the nose, but at least with two over wing exits visible I now know it was definitely a 500 series 1-11 and therefore one of two aircraft BIA were operating at the time........G-AXLN or G-AYWB.
The text in the clipping said the trip was to celebrate the 150th Datapost flight between Edinburgh and Luton but I think this was a mistake as some other papers in the pile mentioned it was the 1,500th flight which seems to be more worthy of a milestone to celebrate. It seems that the whole of the British Island Airways logo was painted out on the port side and a large Datapost logo applied - would this have been a decal, or painted on ?
I must have looked at the photo about a dozen times before I finally spotted it though - just visible behind a set of bagpipes was the edge of the nose gear door......and just visible on the edge of the door what looks like the letter B
So thank to those that responded with information to help me try and identify the aircraft, and also to those who maybe checked through their records but to no avail.
My next mission will be to try and persuade one of the 1:200 diecast model manufacturers to release G-AYWB in this scheme.......