Schoolward-Bound Part II

Today 09 Feb. 2018 I received email permission from the photographer Dave Welch to use his photo. Thank you, Dave.
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Following on from yesterday, we three boys woke up and armed with the vouchers we had been given the night before, went in search of a deli/coffee shop where we could get the promised breakfast.

Now I had just turned 11 years old, I seem to remember one companion was a little older, the other a little younger. We fell out the hotel entrance door and into Times Square on a cool and still foggy morning and with police all over the place.

It was the second big Newspaper strike in New York within a few years. The newspaper business was going through hard times, I guess the Cuban Crisis ending and the Kennedy Assassination losing interest, had hit circulation and the introduction that year of the first computer in the newspaper industry was making the workers nervous.

So there were huge circles of men marching around with placards and surrounded by policeman touting weapons. It was very frightening, to say the least. However, we eventually got to have our coffee and bagel sitting at a counter staring at the crowds outside.

At some point that morning, we were informed the fog showed no sign of lifting but we would be transferred out to a Holiday Inn near JFK. Another bus ride but in daylight so got to see a little bit more through the fog.

The Holiday Inn was simply magic for us boys. Soft drink and ice machines all over the place and good modern televisions. I think we were quite disappointed when we were told the fog was lifting and the evening flight to Heathrow was on.

According to my BOAC Junior Jet Club Log Book, G-APFK Boeing 707 flew 3336 statute miles and took 6:00 hours. The same flight I took two years later in a Super VC10 shows 3456 miles and took 7:10 hours. Must have been a good eastward jetstream that night despite the ground fog.

The plane G-APFK ended her days very ungracefully, crashing and burning out at Prestwick Airport, Scotland on 17th March 1977 on a training flight but without any loss of life.

(I have just, 9th Feb. 2018, done my first ever Wikipedia correction of facts! Quite proud of myself. The delivery date, names of the carriers and dates of which livery she flew in were all wrong.)


I could have used any old free photo of G-APFK in a different livery but I try wherever possible to be as factually correct as possible, even if it takes a little longer. So, once again my thanks to Dave Welch for replying to my request so quickly.