On my way through Heathrow Terminal 2 for my flight home from a recent trip to London, I encountered the following historic wall art as thousands of others brushed hastily past with complete indifference.
Heathrow has great significance and many memories for me. As probably the airport I have most frequently travelled, back in my diplomatic posting to London I would be assigned to meet and greet transiting Canadian ministers, often about 2:00 am in the morning. With diplomatic privilege I would pass them and their staff past immigration formalities and into the confines of the VIP lounge.
(As per usual, on a laptop or desk top monitor, each image is expandable by repeated cursor clicking)
RAF Heston becomes Heathrow Airport after WWII
Converted Lancaster Bomber takes off with passengers not bombs for Buenos Aires in 1946 at the very start of intercontinental passenger aviation
This one tugs at the heart strings. A young Princess Elizabeth returns from a hunting safari in Kenya after the sudden death of her father in 1952 to be greeted by Winston Churchill as she steps on to the soil of “this Sceptred Isle” for the first time as its new sovereign.
“The King is dead! Long live the Queen!”
Given the close relationship between her father and Churchill during the war, she will rely heavily on his guidance in the early years of her reign.
He taught her well!
No Hollywood actress could pull off the role she played for several decades as successfully as she did!
Arrival of Martin Luther King
(The next time you see me, you might want to ask about my drinking history with his assassin, James Earle Ray)
First passenger flight of the Concorde
In the immediate aftermath of the moon landing in 1969, the British government demanded that Aerospatiale immediately fly a prototype of the Concorde over London from Toulouse to showcase British technology and show the British people the result of their massive investment in supersonic flight. I recall standing in my landlady’s Victory Garden and watching in awe the deliberately slow yet magnificently graceful low level pass of this revolutionary aircraft over London’s east end. A remarkable sight!
Heathrow, travel hub of the rich and famous. Here’s the triumphant arrival of Sophia Loren in a leopard (maybe shot by Princess Elizabeth herself!!) skin coat.
Ah, le bon vieux temps!!
Concorde’s record trans Atlantic flight from London to New York in less than 3 hours.
(Apologies to the residents of Long Island for the sonic boom upon arrival!)
Confident arrival of “Satchmo” Armstrong. Not too sure if this was his visit for the recording of “We Have All the Time in the World” for the Bond flick, “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.” It remains one of my favourite tunes of all time (with orchestration by the great John Barry of course!). Turns out the title was personally apocryphal for Louis. He died three weeks after the recording. Out of respect for the passing of the artist, the movie slows to a near stop and unlike any other song in movie history lingers lovingly on each word of the haunting lyrics as a fitting farewell.
Well done you the Bond folks!
Her Majesty opens the new Terminal 5. I had the honour of sitting to the immediate right of a much younger queen in 1987 as the representative of Canada when she opened the new London inner city airport in the old docklands. Thanks for the memories. We shall not see her like again!
AVE ATQUE VALE
