Diary entry by Juliet 23 Jan 1975 –
At 1:30pm Simon put all our luggage in his car and drove it down to Temple Meads. He took us down afterwards (luckily we only lived about a mile and a half from the station). At 2:15pm we got on the train to Reading. We then got a coach to Heathrow Airport. We had to wait about two hours until we went to the place to get on the aeroplane – a sort of bus took us over to the plane. When we were settled down we had to fasten our safety belts. Next minute we took off ! At about 10pm we landed in Athens but weren’t allowed to get out. At the moment I am still on the plane. It is really nice on here.
Later addition to Juliet’s dairy –
Our plane was a VC10 East African Airways and the plastic inner walls had giraffes, lions and elephants printed on it.
Diary entry by Juliet 23 Jan 1975 –
This morning at 7:30am (local time) we landed in Entebbe. It was boiling hot, so hot that I was glad to leave. We weren’t allowed to get out and we all got red faces and had to take off our shoes as our feet were swelling. A European man got on and I was sitting in his seat by the window but he said I could stay there. He had khaki shorts, a short sleeved khaki shirt, a bush hat (I later knew this as a Safari Suit) and was very tanned. Entebbe airport was tiny compared to Heathrow with just a small, one-storey group of buildings surrounded by tarmac runways shimmering in the heat with brown coarse grass growing at the edges. We stayed for about an hour and then flew for another hour before we landed in Kenya our home for the next two and a half years. We flew over Lake Victoria which reflected the glorious, clear blue sky. At the edges we could see clumps of tall green plants which my neighbour told me was papyrus reeds. We had breakfast soon after take-off, served by the tall African stewardesses dressed in turbans and long, beautiful dresses made of lovely, colourful patterned material. We had fresh pineapple drowned in delicious juice. We flew over a high, rugged mountain that had ice on it. Again my neighbour gave me information – he told me it was Mt Kenya, Kenya’s highest mountain. As we were coming in to land at Nairobi I could see miles and miles of brown, burned grass dotted with a few scrawny trees.
Letter from Graham to his brother David 28 Jan 1975 –
We had a fascinating but tiring journey here in a VC10. I used to do simulations of VC10 automatic landings at Elliots so I was pleased to go in one. After leaving Athens we flew over land for some time – I presume it was Turkey. Before long we went out over the sea and saw a coastline below with moonlight to show the line in a fascinating study. After that we were above cloud most of the time. Africa was silver and grey until the moon set later on. Occasionally out of the window I saw a town. One was quite big and looked really unearthly in the distance. When we got near I could see the individual pinpoints of light. We flew at over 30,000 feet. We passed this town 3 hours after leaving Athens so I guess it was Khartoum. About 100 miles further south was a smaller town and after that only quite small clusters of lights. I dozed some of the time.
Letter from Graham to Diane & Sydney 29 Jan 1975 –
Our flight had stops in Athens and Entebbe – the latter was hot but very quiet. Much quieter than it used to be thanks to Idi Amin’s activities.
Juliet's Kenya Days blog 