Flying Through the 30s: A one day symposium on air travel and interwar Britain.

16 April 2016

The Aerodrome Hotel, Croydon Airport

London

Programme

9:45 – 10:15 Coffee and Registration

10:15 – 10:30 Welcome Address

Peter Skinner (Croydon Airport Society): ‘History of Croydon Airport and the Jimmy Jeffs' Collection’

10:30 – 11:30 ‘Flying into the Unknown’

Luke Seaber (UCL): ‘“Upon its glittering lake /Lie Europe and its islands”: The     “Groundmindedness” of Auden and Others in the ’30s’

Daniel Kilburn (UCL): ‘A pilot’s perspective on the formation of modern airmindedness through the 1930s’

Henry K Miller (Cambridge/Anglia Ruskin/Slade): ‘Lumière Comes to Croydon’

11:30 – 11:45 Coffee and Tea Break

Jacky Pett will introduce her display of archival material and book about her father’s work with Imperial Airways in the 1930s.

11:45 – 12:45 ‘Aviation Fever’

Rebecca Harrison (UEA) and Rachel Kapelke-Dale (UCL): ‘Sweethearts of the Skies:     

Gender, National Identity and the “Aviatrix”’

Kathryn Simpson (Cardiff Metropolitan University): ‘Taking Flight: The Literal and Literary          Flights of Lady Mary Heath and Virginia Woolf’

Francis Dyson (UEA): ‘Egypt and Back with Imperial Airways: Ruth Stuart's Passion for Air         Travel’

12:45 – 13:45 Lunch

13:45 – 14:30 Tour of Croydon Airport and Museum

14:30 – 15:45 ‘Tension in the Air’

Derek Ryan (University of Kent): ‘Bunny in the Air: David Garnett, Flight and Animality’

Sarah Fill (Royal Holloway): ‘The Aerial Vision of Paul Nash’

Simon Goulding (Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust): ‘Look to the           Skies! Orwell, Warner and the Coming New War’

John Higgins (University of Stirling, retired): ‘A Novelist's View of Flying for Fun’

           

15:45 – 16:00 Coffee and Tea Break

16:00 – 17:00 ‘Flying Business’

Michael McCluskey (UCL): ‘Croydon Calling: The Documentary Aerodrome’

Nicola Darwood (University of Bedfordshire): ‘Flying Dangerously: Elizabeth Bowen’s To the       North’

Guy Woodward (Maynooth University): ‘A Solar Emperor: Robert Byron Flies East’

17:00 – 17:30 Roundtable Discussion

All presenters and audience members are invited to speak about the day, share memories and stories of Croydon Airport, make connections between papers, and consider ideas for future collaborations.

Registration

£35 Standard

£30 Speakers

£25 Students

Registration fee includes three-course lunch, coffee and tea breaks, and tour of the Croydon Airport Museum.

To register: http://onlinestore.ucl.ac.uk/   (Search: Flying through the ’30s)

How to get here:

The symposium will be held at The Aerodrome Hotel (part of the Hallmark Hotel chain), Purley Way, Croydon, CR9 4LT

The hotel is just next to the Croydon Airport Visitor Centre.

By Train

Waddon is the nearest station and a 10 minute walk to the hotel/airport. We have found this to

be the most direct route from London. Trains leave from Victoria, and Oyster cards are acceptable to Waddon and on return. Out of Waddon Station turn right then turn left onto Purley Way. The Aerodrome Hotel will be on right.  The 289 bus also goes from Waddon Station to Croydon Airport.

Purley is 10 minutes from the airport/hotel by 289 bus.

East Croydon is 20 minutes from central London and then 15 minutes to the airport/hotel by the 119 bus.

By Bus

Bus routes that serve Croydon Airport are the 289 and 119. Buses stop outside Croydon Airport/TheAerodrome Hotel or across the road at The Colonnades.

Organisers

Dr Michael McCluskey (UCL)

Dr Luke Seaber (UCL)

Dr Amara Thornton (UCL)

Dr Debbie Challis (Croydon Airport Society)

Questions?

flyingthroughthethirties@gmail.com

At the Museum of Croydon

Today a volunteer Ian (our faithful courier) and myself delivered the Croydon Calling pop up exhibition to the Museum of Croydon where it will be on display until Saturday 9 January 2016. Museum Opening times are Tuesday to Saturday 10.30am to 5pm and they are located in the centre of Croydon in Croydon Clocktower on Katherine St - see the website for more

The model of Hengist

information. The exhibition itself is in the research room and around the museum area rather than in the actual museum itself.

The Museum of Croydon does boast a model aircraft hanging from the ceiling to represent Croydon Airport and its importance in the local area in the 1920s and 30s. The model is that of Imperial Airways Handley Page (HP) 42 Hengist. These aircaft (HP 42) would have been seen regularly flying to and from Croydon Airport on the European (or West) route and the African and Indian (or East) routes for Imperial Airways Limited. There is more about the HP42 in this post from August.

Celebrity of the Skies: Captain O. P. Jones

Cheryl Bailey finishes her pieces on the Silver Wing Service with a maverick celebrity pilot:

The Silver Wing flights from Croydon to Le Bourget, Paris in the 1930s were a feature of the celebrity lifestyle of the time and the pilots involved became celebrities too. Foremost among them was Capt. Oscar Philip Jones, known simply as 'O.P.' to his friends and colleagues but certainly not to the other staff of Croydon Airport and Imperial Airways where he was viewed with awed respect and a tinge of fear.

His flying career had begun at the age of 18 towards the end of WW1. At the end of the war, he became a pilot in a firm offering ‘joy rides’ to passengers and then progressed to acting as a pilot for Instone Airlines which was one of several which joined forces in 1924 to form Imperial Airways. He flew many routes and, indeed, in 1926 was the first pilot to transport a member of the royal family when the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) flew from Paris to London. 

How Safe was Flying in the 1930s? Part II

Rapid Development in the 1930s.

The graphs showing the number of flights (Machine Flights, left), the number of Passengers and the amount of Cargo and Mail carried show a huge increase starting in 1931/32. We also know that Croydon was handling about half of all UK passengers, 62% of the mail and 84% of the cargo - so this increase inevitably made for a much busier Croydon. So did this increase bring with it an increase in accidents and fatalities?

Serving a crisp salad – the stewards of the Silver Wing Paris flights

Another post from U3A member Cheryl Bailey on luxury travel to Paris by plane in the 1930s:

In the 1930s, responsibility for the comfort and enjoyment of passengers on the Silver Wing Imperial Airways flights from Croydon to Paris rested squarely on the shoulders of the two stewards. Dressed in their blue trousers, white jackets and peaked caps, they were the efficient and smart face of Imperial Airways. The rule book described their job as requiring good manners, tact, a sense of humour, unlimited patience and above all, imagination, ‘which is the power of anticipating passengers’ wants and supplying them before they are expressed’. Their appearance was expected to be immaculate. Another quote from the rule book observes, ‘a wilting collar will do much to take the crispness out of a salad’!

The Ten-Minute Check-In!

Booking Hall Olley Airline Services, 1937 (c) Croydon Airport Society

Air travel today may be faster, smoother and more accessible than it was in the 1930s but it certainly lacks the elegance and convenience of that time. One of the worst experiences nowadays is the check-in experience with its need for arrival hours before departure, the long queues and the dreadful ‘cattle market’ feel of the security area. In the thirties, passengers could arrive in the booking hall at Croydon and be on board their plane in around ten minutes. 

“The fascination and comfort of Silver Wing travel”

Interior of Scylla (a postcard in the collection of Croydon Aiport Society)

This slogan is how Imperial Airways chose to advertise their Silver Wing service from Croydon to Paris in the 1930s. The fascination was in the thrill of flying itself. As the planes flew at a lower level in those days, the whole flight was viewed as a unique sight-seeing experience and the thrill of being airborne was very exciting and sometimes a little daunting to first-time flyers. (Neville Chamberlain, on returning from his visit to Hitler in 1938, commented that his first experience of flying had been ‘not as bad as he had been led to believe’ and that he had travelled very comfortably.) 

Channel Hopping for High Flyers

A blog on the prestige of flying to Paris from Cheryl Bailey, one of our U3A project team:

Passengers taking a return flight to Paris in the 1930s paid just £6 15s. which sounds not like a great deal to us today but of course in those days it was a lot of money. The average skilled workman only earned around £4 a week so airborne channel-hopping was only accessible to very successful people – politicians, big businessmen, celebrities of stage and screen and the very well-off. The staff on the planes loved spotting famous faces on board especially if they were known to be big tippers. Sometimes their names were even added to the pilot’s log.