A boy's view of romance

When I was an innocent laddie, growing up in Lusaka many years ago, I was fascinated by planes. It was the usual combination of a boy's obsession with powerful machines, but also a romantic view of travel. From our back veranda you could see the British United Airways (later called British Caledonian) Vickers VC-10 taking off for London or Johannesburg. How I wished I was on it, heading off for exotic (to me) places! Of course, I never realised that where I lived would have been exotic and romantic  to Londoners, with leopards at the bottom of the garden, snakes in the house, and our Chinyanja servants.  I wanted to see London, which I imagined far more beautiful than it actually is.  I wanted to see the world!  Glamour and excitement lived out there, I thought, not here! Ah well.  We live and learn.

Here are some pics of the BOAC VC-10, one of the quietest jet planes of the time (at least, for the passengers).  Not a great commercial success, but very popular with passengers, and capable of taking off from shortish runways (like Lusaka then)