This Is Not A Democracy

In 1972, in an area of common land, outside Staines, where I grew up, there was an air crash. For 16 years - until Lockerbie - it was the worst air disaster in British history.

As a child, my mother used to take us fishing for minnow in the river along one side of the field.

One day, while we were there with Sandra, my mother's friend, and her kids, they told us what had happened and how a nurse living adjacent to the field had vaulted a six-foot fence to get to the 118 victims and (unsuccessfully) try to save some of them. Everyone on board died, even the man taken to the hospital I was born in for treatment.

I don't know why I'm thinking about this now... but there you go.

Growing up next to Heathrow Airport, kids. You'll fall in love with planes but despise airports and flight paths, and you might just develop a morbid fascination with the things falling out of the sky.

Like the De Havilland Comet. Because naming a plane that wasn't just asking for trouble, was it?


Edit:

From the BBC's 'I was there' section of the 'On This Day' facility:

There but for the grace of God go I - I was booked to take this flight two days later. I remember the accident well and still, after 32 years, have my ticket for the Sunday flight. A very sad day for the families involved and so lucky that the flight did not land on Staines.
Tony FitzGerald, New Zealand

-- the sincere words of a man who has clearly never been to Staines.