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A sunday afternoon treat for me as a kid, was being taken to Southend Airport for a fizzy drink and and a sticky bun in the cafe, watching those Carvairs being loaded and taking off. They were like mini Jumbos.
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We used to go to Leeds Bradford, then known as Yeadon, quite often. Occasionally for a look/see but more often to see off or meet my Father who's business took him to Paris, via Heathrow in those days, a few times a year. Earliest memories are of BKS Avro 748s and the old pre-war terminal. Subsequently Viscounts of BKS then Northeast and a new terminal opened in 1968, still partly intact but long submerged under half a century worth of extensions.
Never saw a Carvair there until one, by then converted to pure freight, bumbled in in August 1975. G-ASDC in a basically bare metal paint scheme and named Plain Jane.
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When I was a nipper my parents took myself and bruv to Jersey on our summer hols. Flying from Yeadon on Dart Heralds I seem to recall. I was about 10yo at the time and they would leave us at Jersey airport after breakfast, with a packed lunch, to watch planes all day, including those front loading jobs which carried cars.
These days they would probably be prosecuted for child neglect. They did the same when I was 12, leaving us at Hest Bank near Carnforth on the old railway bridge all day. They always collected us before dark!
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What were they doing whilst neglecting you and your brother?
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Probably enjoying themselves spending time together without children in tow. There were probably paedos around then but we never felt neglected, in fact quite the opposite. More a sense of being 'grown up' at a very young age. I also seem to remember a Wallace Arnold plane spotters bus from Bradford to Heathrow on a Sunday. I was packed off alone in my early teens and loved it.
Probably explains why I can happily holiday alone and enjoy my own company, be it backpacking, skiing or just a week in the sun. The ex ex only went on one ski trip with me and never did any wild camping trips!
Last edited by: legacylad on Thu 13 Nov 14 at 07:03
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@LL
By time I got into watching planes Jersey was served by Northeast/BA using Viscounts but I seem to remember British United or it's Channel Island offshoot BUIA, flying Dart Heralds in sixties/early seventies. In 75/6 both BA and Dan Air also operated IT type charters to Jersey on summer Saturdays/Sundays as well as the regular schedule.
I too used 'Wallys Trolleys' trips to LHR, though in my case they left from a WA bus station behind the Corn Exchange in Leeds. Later, either Baildon Motors or Wharfedale coaches ran trips direct from Guiseley. In both case ISTR that, after dropping the spotters, at LHR they went on to Windsor. Route was usually via Watford and the then North Orbital Road so you might catch the odd item at Leavesden aerodrome (now closed of course)
Wallace Arnold were also (motoring connection) at one time the Vauxhall dealer for Leeds, adopting the name WAS, from Wallace Arnold Sales and Service, by the seventies.
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I remember travelling Motorail once as a teenager.
Family motoring holiday touring Scotland, we lived in Stafford so we put the car on the train at york and travelled overnight to Inverness. At the end of the tour we made the return journey from (I think) Stirling to Newton-le-Willows. The cars were on open trucks for this run and the driver unloading had great trouble starting the car, a Renault 16 with an early automatic choke, which he was not familiar with. I remember my dad standing on the trackside shouting instructions up at him.
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I parked my car on the Severn Tunnel railcar loading ramp at Pilning some time least year, its still extant, don't know about the other side, somewhere at Severn Tunnel Junction Station I guess.
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Cars by Train, Ferry and Air - Zero
