My first job in aviation was an operations
assistant and the Crew room supervisor from February 1961 until they
folded in November 1961. After a winter of unemployment I joined Dan-Air
Handling at Gatwick in April 1962 working first at check-in then moving
down to Load Control (or Ship's Papers as it was known then.
I became responsible for loadsheet training quite often using the Training Centre at Horsham. I flew on many flights as flight clerk including Gatwick Benina on the Comet when Libya nationalised the oilfields and threw out the Shell workers. I also travelled to Lyneham with the York, Malta with the Ambassador, Dublin and Heathrow and Manchester with the Bristol "Frightner". I also assisted with the first flights for the Comet to Barcelona and Athens with the B727. At the time of the Court Line crash I was sent to Berlin for several days to help the local staff with sudden increase in the number of flights. I was a Traffic Duty Officer from '67-'73 and was seconded to Gatwick Handling on its formation - I retained my Dan Air Contract right through. In 1973 I became a passenger duty officer and was there until I left in March 1979. I joined SAS at Gatwick and in 1980 was transferred to Heathrow at Terminal 2 until we were relocated to Terminal 3 in 1990 . I was a Traffic Officer /Load Controller/ Departure Controller which are all load control and load planning functions, we also performed central load control for stations in Europe and Asia, we also acted as a station controller - local operations, on a rostered basis. I retired in 2005 and being unable to find any other work I moved to Mazarron in Murcia Spain in February 2007. I am enjoying the sun sea and wine and doing nothing. No aircraft overfly the area and I thought I would miss them, having lived in Feltham for 10 years, and although we have military aircraft at low level a half dozen times a year, they don't bother me.
I became responsible for loadsheet training quite often using the Training Centre at Horsham. I flew on many flights as flight clerk including Gatwick Benina on the Comet when Libya nationalised the oilfields and threw out the Shell workers. I also travelled to Lyneham with the York, Malta with the Ambassador, Dublin and Heathrow and Manchester with the Bristol "Frightner". I also assisted with the first flights for the Comet to Barcelona and Athens with the B727. At the time of the Court Line crash I was sent to Berlin for several days to help the local staff with sudden increase in the number of flights. I was a Traffic Duty Officer from '67-'73 and was seconded to Gatwick Handling on its formation - I retained my Dan Air Contract right through. In 1973 I became a passenger duty officer and was there until I left in March 1979. I joined SAS at Gatwick and in 1980 was transferred to Heathrow at Terminal 2 until we were relocated to Terminal 3 in 1990 . I was a Traffic Officer /Load Controller/ Departure Controller which are all load control and load planning functions, we also performed central load control for stations in Europe and Asia, we also acted as a station controller - local operations, on a rostered basis. I retired in 2005 and being unable to find any other work I moved to Mazarron in Murcia Spain in February 2007. I am enjoying the sun sea and wine and doing nothing. No aircraft overfly the area and I thought I would miss them, having lived in Feltham for 10 years, and although we have military aircraft at low level a half dozen times a year, they don't bother me.