This is a picture of Kano Airport in the good old days - when I was a boy who flew back and forth from England and School to Ghana in west Africa. For 2 Christmases I flew back to Ghana for the holidays. Like all the kids who did this, I flew alone.
I can hardly tell you how exciting it was to fly unaccompanied then. I was a member of the Junior Jet Club - you got a kind of passport that the Captain would sign off on. Of course I often got an hour in the cockpit too.
Kano is in norther Nigeria just on the edge of the desert.
The man with the horn had a camel. His job was to wait by the phone until a flight came in. Then he would ride across the field blowing the horn to give warning to all to get off.
The plane is the Bristol Britannia - a 4 engine turbo prop designed for the Empire. It could endure very bad fields, high temperatures.
We had quite along stop there. Kano was a mud city. It was so exotic. I bought a 12 inch dagger in the market which of course I wielded all through the flight - only to have it confiscated at school.
How the world has changed in my own lifetime.
BOAC did have a warning to passengers though. The "School Flight" was labelled as such and wise travelers avoided it. There might be 15 - 25 unruly 8- 13 year old boys and girls on the flight. Mayhem was normal. But I found the crew wonderful. We were naughty but now bad - they were very patient.
We got to know them quite well as they would have a few days off in Accra and spend the days on Labadi Beach where we all used to go as well.
And Christmas in Ghana? We used to have our Christmas dinner on the beach! Turkey in the Coleman! My mother was of course of the school that prohibited swimming for an hour after lunch - all Diana and I wanted was to get back in the water and to surf.
Here we are I am 9 - Diana 7 and Cindy 2
