The games we used to play.

To alleviate the boredom on long-haul flights on the Beach Fleet we played word games on the Passenger Address.

Extract from my book — “Dancing the skies and falling with style.”

We sometimes played a game on the PA. The cabin crew gave us a word which we had to include at some point in our passenger address. If we didn’t include the word, we had to buy the cabin crew a drink each. However, if we did, they had to buy us one. The stakes were high as there are 15 of them and just 3 of us. It required a great deal of ingenuity to include words such as ‘salmon,’ or ‘dreadlocks’ seamlessly into a passenger briefing.

Our flight was from from Gatwick to Montego Bay in the north of Jamaica, and then across the island to Kingston. We were about to start the engines when the chief stewardess came onto the flight deck to announce that boarding and security checks were complete. She was a bubbly, extroverted blonde with a wicked sense of humour.

“Right boys,” she sniggered, “your word for today is ‘bollocks’.”

She clambered on her broomstick and flew out of the flight-deck.

The First Officer was responsible for the announcements on the first leg. I looked at him in despair, trying to calculate how much 15 rum punches would cost in…