GLAMOUR IN THE SKIES by Libbie Escolme-Schmidt

Libbie features once in my logbook. September 12th. 1965, as Miss Escolme. This was not an airline flight but a circuit session at White Waltham in a Terrier. I was the instructor, aged 23, not a total airline beginner, but currently between Comet 4 navigator and B707 pilot.

I do not feature in Glamour in the Skies, but am not surprised. In this splendid book she mentions the typical aura of the flight deck team and their effortless charm, and this applies in many cases, but there are exceptions. “I expected a real instructor, and you gave me a boy.” I quite understand — and agree. Was this the reason that Miss Escolme does not reappear amongst my many dual flights thereafter with long-suffering learners who didn’t know the difference? I will never know, but have, yet again, come to terms with the sense of disappointment with which many of we flyers of a romantic but realistic disposition are familiar. But these observations are only an excuse to give myself a mention in this blog’s book section.

Glamour in the Skies is not just another Coffee, Tea or Me imaginary romp — far from it. It is a painstakingly detailed project, analysing and illustrating a form of employment — a parallel lifestyle really — that has already become history, never to return. Times have changed; the mythical Golden Age of Flying is now achieving substance as the years pass and we confront the present. ‘You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone,’ sang and gyrated Mick Jagger. How true; the nostalgia grows by the day, but this retrospection is not pie in the sky. it’s a distillation of what we participants know to be true; a special and privately rewarding part of their lives they were lucky not to miss.

The author describes her own experiences, thoughts and analysis, but the grande oeuvre of this work is the extensive interviewing of those multi-tasking ladies of character of days gone by, some of whom straightened their tie, saluted the captain, collected the covers, locks and pins, scrambled aboard, waved these in the flight deck doorway then put the kettle on. The variety, fortitude and adaptability of such wartime females is well described, and starts this sometimes magical, occasionally (and privately) tragically romantic story.

We continue with the many anecdotal stewardess stories and statements that punctuate the text; the words of interviewees from nineteen to ninety, from the thirties to the millennium. Bring them on. They are all true, and I have no reason to dispute them, such was the special nature of life aboard an airliner before these got too big, could stay up for too long, and universal electronic communication blew the mystique of other peoples’ countries into the commonplace.

This book is an unashamed celebration of those special female qualities which were employed by the airline industry. ‘Just tacky marketing,’ the woke gender cynic might claim today, but such shallow political correctness fails to appreciate the complexity of human interaction or understand the influential and civilising part that women can seamlessly play in an appropriately integrated team.

‘Glamour’ is what this book is about. It’s not exactly what many might think. It’s not page 3 — and TOWIE, the Real Housewives of Cheshire or New Jersey it certainly ain’t. Read the book to find out the answer. Libbie understands.

Libbie’s WEBSITE