"Bidston to London please" - a day return by air

 

For a brief moment in history, Bidston had it's own airport (ok then airstrip ....). Doctors and figures of high standing who resided along the Noctorum ridge, the leafy suburbs of Oxton and of course Eleanor Road's original massive dwellings with their huge gardens were tempted by the curiosity of, quite literally, 'taking the plane' to work.

Indeed, one particular doctor who lived in Bidston took the one passenger seat in a two-seater biplane, the other seat being of course for the pilot. Now, for those not too familiar with Concorde and it's power of persuasion and commuting power, let me tell you that Concorde was so fast it could fly you early morning from London to New York for a meeting, and back to London the same day.

 

The relevance? Well, our doctor would be chauffeured down to the airstrip, dropped off with his doctors bag (no checked baggage in those days ... ahem ..) and would gingerly board the biplane with the aid of a set of wooden steps and a hook from the baggage handler, with which he would hoist up said bag to the doctor, once he was settled into his seat of course, just  in time for the flight.

 

Being the only passenger, it would quite often mean the local villagers would congregate for the lift off, the doctor shaking his head rather embarrassingly at all the fuss whilst inside feeling really quite 'royal' about the whole jamboree that was emerging before him.

 

The take-off was across a mowed field, the site of which was not too far from The River Fender, somewhere between it and the rocky

sandstone outcrops that airbrush outwards and downwards from the nearby village.

 

I believe his flight took off at 9am, towards Liverpool on a steep climb, level out and, upon the doctor's instructions fly due south over his Bidston home.

Medical journals and advancements in care were such at the time that these flights made economic sense for this doctor, who's reputation and notoriety across Britain at the time meant he was able to afford such luxuries of travel, essentially for the benefit of all.

 

So where in London did the flight land? I believe it was Paddington Green, upon which I suspect the doctor deplaned and visited the nearby St Mary's hospital.

As unlikely as it sounds, he would be back in Bidston by 8pm the same day, just in time to walk the dog, some supper and a glass (or two) of one's best claret.                                              

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