Come Fly With Me
On the Fears & Benefits of Writing
I used to be scared of many things. Flying was one of them. Take-off and landing to be specific, which didn’t make the interim hours much fun. Queuing to get on and off aeroplanes also made me tetchy. And the strange portable connecting tunnel you have to wait in sometimes, suspended high between plane and terminal, that looks structurally unsound from the outside and feels cramped inside – that was a problem.
I really really dislike those tunnels.
My Dad once said that he never queued in them. As an engineer and (latterly) a pilot who feared nothing but owls and my mother leaving, it was a sure sign that avoidance of aviation tunnels was advisable. Admittedly, he was an ill-tempered man who flew a small helicopter and didn’t queue anywhere ever, but no matter. He was equally right about the dangers of fair rides and Saville, and had an inexplicably large stockpile of PPE years before a pandemic he never lived to see, so I still maintain a sensible concern about the few things he was wary of.
Well, sensible nowadays. Not always, in the case of those tunnels.
I’ve almost missed flights trying to look cool, calm and collected at the gate when in fact surreptitiously dodging the dreaded tunnel queue. Unsurprisingly, arguments have ensued as I have scuttled onto the plane at the…
