Sex and alcohol in Elmdon Airport

I had many jobs in my teenage years: all in school and university holidays. Christmas meant working in the Post Office- at first as a sorter, and then delivering letters and parcels. Easter and summer breaks were more diverse. I remember working on a comptometer (a mechanical calculating machine) totting up orders for ice-cream, and packing books in the basement of a public library. The summer job I had before I went to University was as an airport hand (temporary) at Elmdon Airport.

Elmdon Airport followed the custom of the time of being named after the nearest small village rather than the nearest major city (in this case Birmingham). The Airport in 1965 was a tiny affair compared to the present Birmingham International Airport. There was a single airport terminal building constructed in modernist style in 1939. This had an attractive curved frontage and projecting ‘wings’, intended to provide shelter to passengers walking out to the small aeroplanes of the time. As you entered the terminal, there was a row of desks on the left that were staffed by the Airport’s main operator, British European Airways. On the facing wall, there was another row of desks operated by the Airport for other airlines. Passengers checked in their suitcases, which were loaded by hand onto trolleys (no conveyor belts). Passengers then went to a lounge thick with cigarette smoke, and eventually to one of the waiting rooms in an ugly two-storey extension to the main terminal. They were led out to the aeroplane by a member of the airline staff. There were few passengers. No jet planes used Elmdon Airport at that time, and most flights were on Vickers Viscounts and Fokker Friendships. Some old Douglas DC-3 planes were still in operation.

The airport in summer supplemented its full-time airport hands by recruiting a squad of APH(T)s. These were, like myself, all students, and had the job of loading luggage onto trolleys and from them into the aeroplane holds, pushing the stairs to and from the aeroplanes, sweeping-up, and otherwise keeping the airport tidy. We wore shapeless dark blue overalls and a beret. The work was not taxing, but it did involve shifts. I remember cycling from my home in Shirley to the Airport early one bright summer morning, in a world with few cars and lorries. We were managed by a short rather aggressive man called ‘Reg’, with a face like a wrinkled Mr Punch. He came across as a frightening character, who often threatened the permanent airport hands with the sack (‘get your cards’!). However, looking back, I see this as quite theatrical. No-one was sacked, and Reg did not bully the staff, whether permanent or temporary.

At breaktimes, the airport hands would gather in a staff room. This was the only opportunity for the students to meet the permanent members of staff, although the two groups generally did not exchange many ideas. The permanent airport hands were not an inspiring or inspired group of workers. Without Reg to push them along, they would probably have done as little as possible. Their conversation with each other at breaktimes concerned only two topics: alcohol and sex. Both were reported in the same flat affectless way. There was going down to the pub (always called the ‘boozer’), and there was sex with their wife. This was always described as being on the ‘nest’, as in “I had a good time of the nest last night”. And that was it. Looking back, I regret not showing more interest in their lives. I could have asked them about their experiences of National Service, where they went on holiday, and which football team they supported. Instead, I stayed within my small group of fellow-students, who were people of my own age and interests. Shortly after I finished work at the Airport, I went there as a passenger, to fly to Dublin for a holiday. None of the staff recognised me.