Hope Old Fart doesn’t mind us using his thread to reminisce, but who remembers the Southend Airport Club where you could buy Whitbread Tankard at 2 shillings a pint and put your all wages into those two damned fruit machines. It used to be round the back of the “Greasy Spoon”, next to the old Flying Club hangar!

They have always been around I am afraid.

It came to a head when Channel started operating the BAC 1-11 in the mid-sixties. Mr Budge (appropriate name) who lived next to the threshhold of 24 was most vocal about it, writing to the newspaper, etc.

What a prime spot, an enthusiasts dream! It was a shame he didn’t appreciate it!

However I must admit when the 1-11 landed and took off in the dead if night, around 3am, which it did on Sunday mornings during the summer it was pretty noisy. Music to the ears for some of us though!

Where were the security personnel when all this was going on, asleep?

……or a Catalina landing alongside the Queen’s barge would have been good!

Sorry i think i have lost plot on this one ( flynn the milkman???????

Ernie was the one that drove the fastest milkcart in the west!

Look forward to seeing the pics. However I was a bit puzzled by the comment “first Emirates A340 service to UK i believe” as I have flown back to the UK on one!

What a smart aircraft, also love the colour scheme!

Excellent photos too of course!

Further to GrahamSimons’ post, Brooklands at Sywell also operated a couple of Austers in the house colour scheme. I have just found a photo in which two are visible, taken at a Northamptonshire ATC parade at Sywell in, I think, 1959. One of them is J-1 G-AMTM, which I had the pleasure to fly in 1960.

Here she is in 1965, unfortunalely in black and white!