This book is not a history of BOAC, although history obviously comes into it, it is more a celebration of an era which will never return. In our times air travel has become much safer, much cheaper, but infinitely less glamorous. This book recalls the days when flying was thought to be so exotic that major Hollywood movies were set entirely in airport departure lounges.
Burnt Ash Publishing
From the ashes of flying boat era and the birth of “the Speedbird”, thru the jet age and the golden sixties to the Jumbo Jet. Highs and Lows of an Iconic Airlines.
A “hundred-hands book” born from a Facebook group, written on the memories of former employees, family members, observers and who-knows-who. This is a book celebrating an era and an Iconic airline.
It is not about history, is about lives… million of lives that crossed the golden age of flying and one of the most representative airlines, the most iconic aircrafts and the long journey around the World at that time. Million of stories, that for a moment or a lifetime, shared some hundred miles or thousand…
This book is about the perception, from different point of views, of the BOAC and the Golden Age of Travels.
Some of Malcolm Turner’s earliest memories are of BOAC flights arriving at London Airport. His father was a BOAC pilot (Britannia and VC10). His parents met when they were working for BOAC at Whitchurch, Bristol in 1945. Malcolm lived in Filton, Bristol until the age of four and can just remember seeing the mighty but uncommercial Bristol Brabazon.
His sister was BOAC cabin crew for many years, as was his cousin, along with one of his aunts who was a stewardess on Stratocruisers. His uncle joined Imperial Airways in 1938 and later became BOAC’s Personnel Director.
Malcolm joined BOAC in 1970, initially in air cargo at Heathrow and later in reservations at the Victoria Air Terminal. He left at the time of the merger with BEA in 1974.
He is the author of The Honourable Member (2017)
About the author