Good Laugh (Lagos 1975 - 1979)
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Good Laugh (Lagos 1975 - 1979)
I always find the time to read about the good old days of aviators and airline personnel based in Lagos and their experiences.
This one is about a BOAC manager based in Lagos between 1975 - 1979, hope you enjoy and laugh as much as I did while reading and having my breakie this morning.
I lived in Lagos as a little boy with my folks and life was good then, a lot of these stories bring back fond memories of those days in Lagos.
If the moderators allow it on the african thread I intend to add more stories from my little archive every sunday
Enjoy...
Lagos was one of the more difficult places to live and work, but looking back on it through the prism of the years, we did have some good times. We made our own entertainment, and the social life was excellent. The incidents that one remembers were not necessarily the most spectacular, but caused great amusement at the time.
On one occasion we had a dinner party on our L-shaped patio, which was on two levels. I was seated on the lower level, which meant that I was directly facing (but naturally trying to avert my eyes from) the very shapely legs of the young lady who was our new neighbour.
At certain times of the year land crabs tend to migrate inland from the foreshore and would often use our garden as part of their route. I was suddenly aware of a crab the size of a small dinner plate, which was making its way slowly over the patio, under the tables and had paused for breath at a point very close to the lady’s foot.
Then, apparently in slow motion, she became aware of my gaze and her feminine intuition told her that the expression on my face was of something a little more than male admiration, realized that there was some creature under her table…and was immediately on her feet and standing on her chair, followed by half the other ladies in the party.
In Lagos we had the benefit of a small army of servants, who usually lived on the premises. Much could be written about the misunderstandings that have taken place due to difficulties in mutual cultural understanding. There was a tendency of Nigerians in domestic service to take literally everything that they are told.
Our steward, Martin, had been schooled by generations of BOAC ‘madams’ and spoke English very well. He was invariably immaculately turned out, scrupulously polite and totally trustworthy. Most of our friends and colleagues had the same experience. There were, however those whose understanding was less than perfect.
Among the expatriate population, many ‘servant’ stories were told, some of which must be apocryphal, and are certainly not politically correct, but have entered the folklore nonetheless. A favourite is that of the lady who wished to serve a suckling pig as part of her dinner party, and informed her steward that it was to be served ‘with an apple in the mouth’. (The personal pronoun was not normally used in the English spoken by West African house servants) He, of course, inferred that the apple had to be in his own mouth, and presented the suckling pig accordingly…
Another told her steward that dinner should be served ‘through the hatch’ and was alarmed to see him appear with the dinner tray in hand, climbing with his leading leg like a hurdler through the hatch between kitchen and dining room. A third, more alarming story, is of the lady telling her steward that if the baby did not take the bottle, it should be put back in the fridge. Yes, you guessed it.
Our own particular memorable experience is of the shorting of some wiring along the ceiling in our back kitchen. We called the electrician, who sent out a man to deal with the problem. Wearing fashionable clothing, slicked down hair, dark glasses and heavy metal-studded boots, he was every inch a real dude.
When my wife showed him where the problem was, he got his metal ladder and climbed to the ceiling where the wiring was. “Hadn’t you better turn the power off first?” she asked mildly. He gave her a withering stare. “What you know of electric? You are only woman!” Seconds later, he was thrown from the ladder and across the room by the short circuit he had just created and was lucky to escape serious injury.
I am am indebted to an 'old coaster' friend, Ian Beckett for the story of another mutual friend, a brewery manager who used to travel the country a lot. He was staying in one of the upcountry offices and found that he would have to stay the weekend to finish some business. It occurred to him to ask his wife to join him, so he phoned down to Lagos and suggested she make the trip as a change from the boring routine of the big city.
On arrival at the brewery rest house, she was met by the steward. “Welcome madam, I will run your bath,” he said. “Oh, no, that’s fine, I’ll just relax for a while and then take a bath later,” she replied. “No madam,” said the steward: “master say that when ladies come to rest house they always take bath before they meet the master!”
The ‘new’ Murtala Mohammed airport in Lagos, open since 1979, has been the subject of considerable television coverage through the TV ‘Airport’ programme. Most of our experience was at the old airport building, a ramshackle affair remarkable only for the obstacle course one had to endure to get on an aircraft.
Checking in for a flight was a nightmare. Queuing was non-existent. If you did not bring with you your own burly Nigerian retainer to ‘negotiate’ with the check-in clerk on your behalf, you were more or less obliged to employ a ‘tout’ who would push and shove other touts out of the way both in front of and behind the check-in desk to get the attention of the check-in staff first and eventually get you a boarding pass.
Passengers entering this unseemly melee themselves would very quickly have lost their dignity and probably more. Having negotiated check-in, your troubles were not over, as there were no fewer than eight checkpoints – immigration, police, customs, outbound port health (!) baggage identification, baggage labelling and a couple of other improbable checks before reaching the final departure lounge. At each one of these you would be asked for a ‘dash’ – a small amount of money – to ensure that you and your baggage got on the aircraft.
Even then you were not home and dry. We knew one manager of a large British conglomerate who was recalled to his head office for consultations over some dispute with the Nigerian authorities and was on the London bound aircraft taxiing out to take off. The aircraft was stopped at the edge of the taxiway, steps were put up and he was removed and taken away for questioning by the authorities. I don’t know the full outcome, but he left Nigeria for good shortly afterwards.
Domestic air services within Nigeria were fairly rudimentary but worked after a fashion. I heard of one man who used to take the same early morning Nigeria Airways flight to Kano every week, with the same cabin crew. Breakfast in first class consisted of a (very) hard boiled egg and a piece of bread.
He would say to the stewardess: “..and what do you have for my breakfast this morning” and she would say “boiled egg, sah!” After a while he would say to her “You know what I would really like – champagne, smoked salmon, scrambled egg and some nice fresh coffee”, and she would reply, “Sorry sah, boiled egg again.”
After a while this exchange became a regular little routine between them, with which she played along nicely. One morning however, he was astonished when she came up the aisle smiling broadly and placed before him a larger tray than usual containing - champagne, smoked salmon, scrambled egg and coffee, all beautifully presented. When he looked up interrogatively she said: “One first class passenger on Pan Am going to go hungry this morning sah!”
We were introduced on arrival in Nigeria to the Nigeria Police Dog Unit, a splendid group of people who trained dogs for police work. As we had a large and secure compound, we were good candidates to foster a puppy that would later be trained for police work. The police brought a regular supply of dog food and tended to all his inoculations and other veterinary needs.
The down-side was that after 2-3 years they would want him back for training, which was difficult for the family who naturally became very attached to ‘their’ dog, but for expatriates who were going to be leaving eventually anyway, the arrangement was ideal.
‘Our’ first puppy was a sweet natured Alsatian called Sammy, whom we acquired at the age of 3 months. He became a firm family favourite and my daughters spoiled him more than they should. When he was taken away for training we always enquired of the senior police officer after his progress, and were proud to learn after a while that he had become ‘top of his class in harassment!’ I suspect we would not have recognized our puppy.
One of the joys of West Africa was the occasionally, to our ears, quaint use of the English language. If a business associate were not available to visitors, the secretary would tell you ‘he is not on seat.’ A traffic jam was called a ‘go-slow’, and if a car broke down it ‘cease fire’, a thief was a ‘tief-man’ and if somebody were to behave in a silly or irrational manner, he ‘go for bush’. I have seen and can personally vouch for the headline that appeared in the national newspaper when the former leader General Gowon visited Kano and was well received by the populace – ‘Gowon Gets Clap in Kano’. I still have the newspaper cutting somewhere.
This one is about a BOAC manager based in Lagos between 1975 - 1979, hope you enjoy and laugh as much as I did while reading and having my breakie this morning.
I lived in Lagos as a little boy with my folks and life was good then, a lot of these stories bring back fond memories of those days in Lagos.
If the moderators allow it on the african thread I intend to add more stories from my little archive every sunday
Enjoy...
Lagos was one of the more difficult places to live and work, but looking back on it through the prism of the years, we did have some good times. We made our own entertainment, and the social life was excellent. The incidents that one remembers were not necessarily the most spectacular, but caused great amusement at the time.
On one occasion we had a dinner party on our L-shaped patio, which was on two levels. I was seated on the lower level, which meant that I was directly facing (but naturally trying to avert my eyes from) the very shapely legs of the young lady who was our new neighbour.
At certain times of the year land crabs tend to migrate inland from the foreshore and would often use our garden as part of their route. I was suddenly aware of a crab the size of a small dinner plate, which was making its way slowly over the patio, under the tables and had paused for breath at a point very close to the lady’s foot.
Then, apparently in slow motion, she became aware of my gaze and her feminine intuition told her that the expression on my face was of something a little more than male admiration, realized that there was some creature under her table…and was immediately on her feet and standing on her chair, followed by half the other ladies in the party.
In Lagos we had the benefit of a small army of servants, who usually lived on the premises. Much could be written about the misunderstandings that have taken place due to difficulties in mutual cultural understanding. There was a tendency of Nigerians in domestic service to take literally everything that they are told.
Our steward, Martin, had been schooled by generations of BOAC ‘madams’ and spoke English very well. He was invariably immaculately turned out, scrupulously polite and totally trustworthy. Most of our friends and colleagues had the same experience. There were, however those whose understanding was less than perfect.
Among the expatriate population, many ‘servant’ stories were told, some of which must be apocryphal, and are certainly not politically correct, but have entered the folklore nonetheless. A favourite is that of the lady who wished to serve a suckling pig as part of her dinner party, and informed her steward that it was to be served ‘with an apple in the mouth’. (The personal pronoun was not normally used in the English spoken by West African house servants) He, of course, inferred that the apple had to be in his own mouth, and presented the suckling pig accordingly…
Another told her steward that dinner should be served ‘through the hatch’ and was alarmed to see him appear with the dinner tray in hand, climbing with his leading leg like a hurdler through the hatch between kitchen and dining room. A third, more alarming story, is of the lady telling her steward that if the baby did not take the bottle, it should be put back in the fridge. Yes, you guessed it.
Our own particular memorable experience is of the shorting of some wiring along the ceiling in our back kitchen. We called the electrician, who sent out a man to deal with the problem. Wearing fashionable clothing, slicked down hair, dark glasses and heavy metal-studded boots, he was every inch a real dude.
When my wife showed him where the problem was, he got his metal ladder and climbed to the ceiling where the wiring was. “Hadn’t you better turn the power off first?” she asked mildly. He gave her a withering stare. “What you know of electric? You are only woman!” Seconds later, he was thrown from the ladder and across the room by the short circuit he had just created and was lucky to escape serious injury.
I am am indebted to an 'old coaster' friend, Ian Beckett for the story of another mutual friend, a brewery manager who used to travel the country a lot. He was staying in one of the upcountry offices and found that he would have to stay the weekend to finish some business. It occurred to him to ask his wife to join him, so he phoned down to Lagos and suggested she make the trip as a change from the boring routine of the big city.
On arrival at the brewery rest house, she was met by the steward. “Welcome madam, I will run your bath,” he said. “Oh, no, that’s fine, I’ll just relax for a while and then take a bath later,” she replied. “No madam,” said the steward: “master say that when ladies come to rest house they always take bath before they meet the master!”
The ‘new’ Murtala Mohammed airport in Lagos, open since 1979, has been the subject of considerable television coverage through the TV ‘Airport’ programme. Most of our experience was at the old airport building, a ramshackle affair remarkable only for the obstacle course one had to endure to get on an aircraft.
Checking in for a flight was a nightmare. Queuing was non-existent. If you did not bring with you your own burly Nigerian retainer to ‘negotiate’ with the check-in clerk on your behalf, you were more or less obliged to employ a ‘tout’ who would push and shove other touts out of the way both in front of and behind the check-in desk to get the attention of the check-in staff first and eventually get you a boarding pass.
Passengers entering this unseemly melee themselves would very quickly have lost their dignity and probably more. Having negotiated check-in, your troubles were not over, as there were no fewer than eight checkpoints – immigration, police, customs, outbound port health (!) baggage identification, baggage labelling and a couple of other improbable checks before reaching the final departure lounge. At each one of these you would be asked for a ‘dash’ – a small amount of money – to ensure that you and your baggage got on the aircraft.
Even then you were not home and dry. We knew one manager of a large British conglomerate who was recalled to his head office for consultations over some dispute with the Nigerian authorities and was on the London bound aircraft taxiing out to take off. The aircraft was stopped at the edge of the taxiway, steps were put up and he was removed and taken away for questioning by the authorities. I don’t know the full outcome, but he left Nigeria for good shortly afterwards.
Domestic air services within Nigeria were fairly rudimentary but worked after a fashion. I heard of one man who used to take the same early morning Nigeria Airways flight to Kano every week, with the same cabin crew. Breakfast in first class consisted of a (very) hard boiled egg and a piece of bread.
He would say to the stewardess: “..and what do you have for my breakfast this morning” and she would say “boiled egg, sah!” After a while he would say to her “You know what I would really like – champagne, smoked salmon, scrambled egg and some nice fresh coffee”, and she would reply, “Sorry sah, boiled egg again.”
After a while this exchange became a regular little routine between them, with which she played along nicely. One morning however, he was astonished when she came up the aisle smiling broadly and placed before him a larger tray than usual containing - champagne, smoked salmon, scrambled egg and coffee, all beautifully presented. When he looked up interrogatively she said: “One first class passenger on Pan Am going to go hungry this morning sah!”
We were introduced on arrival in Nigeria to the Nigeria Police Dog Unit, a splendid group of people who trained dogs for police work. As we had a large and secure compound, we were good candidates to foster a puppy that would later be trained for police work. The police brought a regular supply of dog food and tended to all his inoculations and other veterinary needs.
The down-side was that after 2-3 years they would want him back for training, which was difficult for the family who naturally became very attached to ‘their’ dog, but for expatriates who were going to be leaving eventually anyway, the arrangement was ideal.
‘Our’ first puppy was a sweet natured Alsatian called Sammy, whom we acquired at the age of 3 months. He became a firm family favourite and my daughters spoiled him more than they should. When he was taken away for training we always enquired of the senior police officer after his progress, and were proud to learn after a while that he had become ‘top of his class in harassment!’ I suspect we would not have recognized our puppy.
One of the joys of West Africa was the occasionally, to our ears, quaint use of the English language. If a business associate were not available to visitors, the secretary would tell you ‘he is not on seat.’ A traffic jam was called a ‘go-slow’, and if a car broke down it ‘cease fire’, a thief was a ‘tief-man’ and if somebody were to behave in a silly or irrational manner, he ‘go for bush’. I have seen and can personally vouch for the headline that appeared in the national newspaper when the former leader General Gowon visited Kano and was well received by the populace – ‘Gowon Gets Clap in Kano’. I still have the newspaper cutting somewhere.
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Great stuff , I am ex Kenya and Malawi and have a fund of stories , I based an after-dinner speech on humorous happenings in aviation-Africa and it was a sure-fire hit once the ice was broken.
I will cut it all short , but my favorite Nigeria story was the one of the F27 flight out of some small airfield in Northern Nigeria in the 70/80s , where there were , for some unexplainable reason , about 100 peeps with 'Confirmed ' tickets for said 44 pax flight ! The usual Nigerian type queuing meant 110 peeps shoving/shouting/dashing/rioting etc , until the local Army commandant intervened , fired his gun in the air to get attention ( not sure if it was into the ceiling or not ) ,ordered all outside , and ordered them all to take part in a race around the airport perimeter with the first 44 back enjoying a seat to Lagos !! The vision of lots of bloated plutocrats puffing and blowing their way around the airfield has always made me laugh .
Long live Africa !!
I will cut it all short , but my favorite Nigeria story was the one of the F27 flight out of some small airfield in Northern Nigeria in the 70/80s , where there were , for some unexplainable reason , about 100 peeps with 'Confirmed ' tickets for said 44 pax flight ! The usual Nigerian type queuing meant 110 peeps shoving/shouting/dashing/rioting etc , until the local Army commandant intervened , fired his gun in the air to get attention ( not sure if it was into the ceiling or not ) ,ordered all outside , and ordered them all to take part in a race around the airport perimeter with the first 44 back enjoying a seat to Lagos !! The vision of lots of bloated plutocrats puffing and blowing their way around the airfield has always made me laugh .
Long live Africa !!
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Good Old Africa
In keeping with the 'I love Nigeria stories", 1979 parked at Kaduna facing I think north with short taxi to line up for the short hop to Kano.
In front, about 30mtrs at the hold a B732 wet lease Nigeria Airways thru PARC awaiting line up.............Out of periferral vision appears Nigerian business man, brief case in hand pushing an Airstair which he procedes to align with the L2 door. Mounting the stair he proceeds to the door just as Nigeria airways is given line up clearance.
Remember his stairway to freedom is between the wing and the tailplane with "Line up given".
It took awhile even for the Paddys to believe my intervention.......then a Hostie face at the L/H overwing for confirm followed by Police.
The Girt Bar would have sorted him out.
Ye Bo.
In front, about 30mtrs at the hold a B732 wet lease Nigeria Airways thru PARC awaiting line up.............Out of periferral vision appears Nigerian business man, brief case in hand pushing an Airstair which he procedes to align with the L2 door. Mounting the stair he proceeds to the door just as Nigeria airways is given line up clearance.
Remember his stairway to freedom is between the wing and the tailplane with "Line up given".
It took awhile even for the Paddys to believe my intervention.......then a Hostie face at the L/H overwing for confirm followed by Police.
The Girt Bar would have sorted him out.
Ye Bo.
Flew many times to Lagos 76 - 79 (BCal 707). Used to stay at The Ikeja Arms - the hotel with the whispering hedge (another story)and The Hungry Man restaurant. I remember at least 2 stories. Rumours of course.
1. A Nigerian short haul flight was on route Lagos - Accra. The stewardess rushed on the flight deck and said there was smoke in the rear galley. The captain sends back the f/o to have a look. He doesn't return so the captain leaves the flight deck to see what was happening. The aircraft hits a little turbulence and the flight deck door shuts. It is self locking! The aircraft passes over Accra out to sea before a ground engineer with toolbox asks if he can help. He manages to open the door and the aircraft manages to turn round and make it to Accra just before they ran out of fuel.
2. Nigerian Airways ran a coastal route Lagos - Dakar via Accra, Robertsfield, Freetown, Conakry and Banjul then nightstop. One day the flight (737 I believe) arrived in Dakar. The captain sent the crew to the hotel then tanked up the plane and flew solo to Freetown where he had a girlfriend. Spent the night with her and returned to Dakar in time for the service back to Lagos. You see - flying used to be fun.
1. A Nigerian short haul flight was on route Lagos - Accra. The stewardess rushed on the flight deck and said there was smoke in the rear galley. The captain sends back the f/o to have a look. He doesn't return so the captain leaves the flight deck to see what was happening. The aircraft hits a little turbulence and the flight deck door shuts. It is self locking! The aircraft passes over Accra out to sea before a ground engineer with toolbox asks if he can help. He manages to open the door and the aircraft manages to turn round and make it to Accra just before they ran out of fuel.
2. Nigerian Airways ran a coastal route Lagos - Dakar via Accra, Robertsfield, Freetown, Conakry and Banjul then nightstop. One day the flight (737 I believe) arrived in Dakar. The captain sent the crew to the hotel then tanked up the plane and flew solo to Freetown where he had a girlfriend. Spent the night with her and returned to Dakar in time for the service back to Lagos. You see - flying used to be fun.
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Lagos!
Yeah laughed my ass off there when I got arrested! Number of years back on the mighty Diezel 8.... Offloaded in Lagos and suppose to ferry fly to Yamousoukro. I was training an F/E, when during start a belt loader banged into to the forward fuselage.I asked the crew to continue starting the other 3engines, while I would get out and see if there was any damage.
Funny enough, as I opend the door, here was the beltloader and a nigerian chap jumping into the airplane. Didn't pay much attention to it at the time.. As I got down on the ramp I could see the extend of the damage done by the beltloader. Nothing much, just a crack above one one the Turbo Compressor panel,s unpresurrized area, so not a big deal.We decided to shut down the engines and go with the formalities.
The Captain was going to fill out an incident rapport and my trainee and I fixed up the crack. (Speedtaped it).
All great, ready to blast of out of this wonderfull place!I got to the top op the (still attached) beltloader when I found a passport on the floor of our galley.
Rather strange and asked the rest of the crew if they lost a 'Nigerian passport'. Obviously nobody did. So I decided to take a look behind position 13, where out empty pallet stack was.... What do I find? A Nigerian stow away.....F*cking great.
Trying to keep it quiet, I told the fellow to make a run for it. Guess it was too late...Our hero Captain found him running down the cabin and started yelling and screaming to the military guy (the one that calls the tower and clears you to start) that we have a stowaway onboard.The poor guy got beaten the sh*t out of him with a whip.
We finally managed to close the door and blast off for Yanousoukro, it had only been a 18 hour duty already..... So we pushed and started and taxied out for 19R. At the hold, Lagos Tower cleared us for take-off. Great, I can see an airplane on a roughly short final, but we're cleared for take-off.
We decided to let the poor buggers land first, instead in forcing them in a go around. Ok, the inbound 737 vacated 19R and once again cleared for take-off 19R. Stabilizing.......setting reduced thrust...... Airspeed alive...... 80 Knots.....
ABC123 (that's us) abort your take off, repeat, you are not cleared for take off.....Took us a good couple of seconds to decide what to do....We did ended up abording the take off roll at about a hundred knots.
Frustrated we taxied back to the ramp. From there it only got better. Now the "officials" wanted a full report of what had happend. They also wanted the Captain and me to identify the stowaway. So we did....Big mistake going with this clown Captain... As we get to the holding cell of the poot bloke (not bigger then a dog kennel) the idiot started screaming "that's the stowaway, beat him, beat him".
Not sure what happend next but I nearly ended up with the stowaway in his cage. I was too arrested now....For what I still don't know.
That took another hour or so. Finally our F/O came to the rescue. If it wasn't for him we probably would have ended up in jail for People Smuggle. J.P G. , thanks and also hope you have these fund memories of Lagos. As for you, Captain G.S. it was about time for you to retire.....
Another 2 hours later and we finally left Lagos
So Lagos, yeah great fun.....
So much fun, I never hope to land there again....
Yeah laughed my ass off there when I got arrested! Number of years back on the mighty Diezel 8.... Offloaded in Lagos and suppose to ferry fly to Yamousoukro. I was training an F/E, when during start a belt loader banged into to the forward fuselage.I asked the crew to continue starting the other 3engines, while I would get out and see if there was any damage.
Funny enough, as I opend the door, here was the beltloader and a nigerian chap jumping into the airplane. Didn't pay much attention to it at the time.. As I got down on the ramp I could see the extend of the damage done by the beltloader. Nothing much, just a crack above one one the Turbo Compressor panel,s unpresurrized area, so not a big deal.We decided to shut down the engines and go with the formalities.
The Captain was going to fill out an incident rapport and my trainee and I fixed up the crack. (Speedtaped it).
All great, ready to blast of out of this wonderfull place!I got to the top op the (still attached) beltloader when I found a passport on the floor of our galley.
Rather strange and asked the rest of the crew if they lost a 'Nigerian passport'. Obviously nobody did. So I decided to take a look behind position 13, where out empty pallet stack was.... What do I find? A Nigerian stow away.....F*cking great.
Trying to keep it quiet, I told the fellow to make a run for it. Guess it was too late...Our hero Captain found him running down the cabin and started yelling and screaming to the military guy (the one that calls the tower and clears you to start) that we have a stowaway onboard.The poor guy got beaten the sh*t out of him with a whip.
We finally managed to close the door and blast off for Yanousoukro, it had only been a 18 hour duty already..... So we pushed and started and taxied out for 19R. At the hold, Lagos Tower cleared us for take-off. Great, I can see an airplane on a roughly short final, but we're cleared for take-off.
We decided to let the poor buggers land first, instead in forcing them in a go around. Ok, the inbound 737 vacated 19R and once again cleared for take-off 19R. Stabilizing.......setting reduced thrust...... Airspeed alive...... 80 Knots.....
ABC123 (that's us) abort your take off, repeat, you are not cleared for take off.....Took us a good couple of seconds to decide what to do....We did ended up abording the take off roll at about a hundred knots.
Frustrated we taxied back to the ramp. From there it only got better. Now the "officials" wanted a full report of what had happend. They also wanted the Captain and me to identify the stowaway. So we did....Big mistake going with this clown Captain... As we get to the holding cell of the poot bloke (not bigger then a dog kennel) the idiot started screaming "that's the stowaway, beat him, beat him".
Not sure what happend next but I nearly ended up with the stowaway in his cage. I was too arrested now....For what I still don't know.
That took another hour or so. Finally our F/O came to the rescue. If it wasn't for him we probably would have ended up in jail for People Smuggle. J.P G. , thanks and also hope you have these fund memories of Lagos. As for you, Captain G.S. it was about time for you to retire.....
Another 2 hours later and we finally left Lagos
So Lagos, yeah great fun.....
So much fun, I never hope to land there again....
Last edited by Maurice Chavez; 10th Dec 2007 at 21:41. Reason: forgot to mention the year, 1997, well progressed....
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Aah Lagos, and especially the freight apron. I was Lagos route manager for IML in the late 70’s and had a target of two, yep two, 707s a day. The reason was of course that Nigeria had oil and was expanding at a huge rate. The port of Apapa was quoting 365 day demurrage for shipping (and this was AFTER you had bribed the harbourmaster) so everything went by air.
I was running 707’s, Dc8’s, Brits, 44s and even the odd DC7 and I still had a waitlist of cargo. Backloads used to be skins from Kano (until one load rotted the floor of a 707), cobalt from Lubumbashi or occasionally cucumbers from Almeria. With the build up in tempo the Lagos apron got congested so the NAA introduced “slot times” which of course got shorter and shorter. At one stage we had TMAC 44’s offloading by taxying forward and effectively dropping the load off the tail. Then one airline (Ostend based with an old Brit) decided to nick someone else’s slot and all hell broke loose. NAA then brought in the “pre-clearance” system where you could not export the goods until the paperwork had customs cleared. Absolute bedlam especially when I had a 24 tonne load that did not preclear as expected and ended up in Tenerife instead of Warri.
The Nigerian partner of IML was IMNL and they had this guest house for Uk based expats. My first morning there the houseboy did me wonderful mince on toast. That night for dinner we had Spaghetti Bolognese. Next day we had curried mince and so on. The only thing the guy could cook was mince.
And I remember sitting in the jump seat of a Tradewinds 707 in the early dawn as we were awaiting customs to wake up, enjoying a coldie or two, when the lower rear cargo door light came on. Some enterprising chappie was trying to heist the belly hold contents. Captain had not shut down so he just throttled up a bit and , well, you get the picture.
Five years later I moved to Lagos for a year with DHL and when I went into the freight shed to find something or other I saw to my amazement my own handwriting on shipments that had been sitting there all that time. But DHL Nigeria… that’s another story!
This thread should also run on Freight Dogs. I think half the loadmasters in the world probably have some tale to tell of Nigeria
I was running 707’s, Dc8’s, Brits, 44s and even the odd DC7 and I still had a waitlist of cargo. Backloads used to be skins from Kano (until one load rotted the floor of a 707), cobalt from Lubumbashi or occasionally cucumbers from Almeria. With the build up in tempo the Lagos apron got congested so the NAA introduced “slot times” which of course got shorter and shorter. At one stage we had TMAC 44’s offloading by taxying forward and effectively dropping the load off the tail. Then one airline (Ostend based with an old Brit) decided to nick someone else’s slot and all hell broke loose. NAA then brought in the “pre-clearance” system where you could not export the goods until the paperwork had customs cleared. Absolute bedlam especially when I had a 24 tonne load that did not preclear as expected and ended up in Tenerife instead of Warri.
The Nigerian partner of IML was IMNL and they had this guest house for Uk based expats. My first morning there the houseboy did me wonderful mince on toast. That night for dinner we had Spaghetti Bolognese. Next day we had curried mince and so on. The only thing the guy could cook was mince.
And I remember sitting in the jump seat of a Tradewinds 707 in the early dawn as we were awaiting customs to wake up, enjoying a coldie or two, when the lower rear cargo door light came on. Some enterprising chappie was trying to heist the belly hold contents. Captain had not shut down so he just throttled up a bit and , well, you get the picture.
Five years later I moved to Lagos for a year with DHL and when I went into the freight shed to find something or other I saw to my amazement my own handwriting on shipments that had been sitting there all that time. But DHL Nigeria… that’s another story!
This thread should also run on Freight Dogs. I think half the loadmasters in the world probably have some tale to tell of Nigeria
