A DOUBLE WHAMMY

When I was about ten years old, I suffered perhaps the first double whammy of my fledging life.....always accepting, of course, that being born six weeks before the outbreak of WW II is not whammy enough.

At the time of these particular episodes, we lived at Hythe on the shores of Southampton Water, where my father worked for BOAC at their flying boat maintenance base.

One day I was taken along to see a brand new flying boat, which had been moored alongside the maintenance apron, which we could see quite clearly from the end of our back garden. I can`t recall which particular flying boat it was - may even have been the one shown above. As part of the `celebrations` I was handed my very first glass of champagne. "Here you are, small boy," said the very proper stewardess in her BOAC uniform, "try this. It`s only apple juice - won`t hurt you."

So, down it went....and very quickly came up again. It tasted exactly like she said - fizzy apple juice - and from that experience, I have only ever enjoyed the odd quaff and never become much of an enthusiast. Cheers anyway:-

A year or two before that event, my father thought it was time I learned to swim, so he taught me by invoking the time-honoured method of taking me to the edge of the maintenance apron....and throwing me into Southampton Water! Sink or swim time - I swam alright. Fortunately for me, the tide was in at the time and no flying boats were in the vicinity.

(click to enlarge)

BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) became British Airways, but the flying boat operation is long gone and the location of my early whammies is now a housing development whose opening no doubt saw the champagne flow once more, but these days small boys tend not to be thrown in the deep end.