Andrea Clayton Vail
@andrea-v.com
113 followers 174 following 188 posts
A #London resident from Eastern #Canada. #History enthusiast, long time #MacAdmin, collector of old #VideoGames, appreciative of #synths, #basketball fan, #trains. She/They
A #London resident from Eastern #Canada. #History enthusiast, long time #MacAdmin, collector of old #VideoGames, appreciative of #synths, #basketball fan, #trains. She/They
![A Look at London Airport : visitors leaflet : Ministry of Aviation and the Central Office of Information : Her Majesty's Stationery Office : nd [ca.1960] : cover : Period colour illustration showing couple and child on higher level of observation deck looking out across the terminal building, runway and taxi-ing aircraft.
A folder, for visitors as "London Airport is planned for visitors - and welcomes you" - that cost 6d (2½p) and was issued by the Ministry of Aviation and the Central Office of Information. It describes the many features and amenities that you, the visitor could enjoy at the time including guided coach tours that took you behind the scenes to see, up close, aircraft maintenance hangers. The descriptions of the airport and its functions, as are the uncredited illustrations, are very much of their age; the New Elizabethan modernity of air travel with a hint of the excitement of the Festival of Britain. London's airport at Heathrow, in Middlesex and on the west of the capital, opened to civil aviation traffic in 1946; it was renamed London Heathrow Airport in 1967.
The publication is not dated but feels very late-50s. The Ministry of Aviation became a free-standing Ministry in 1959. The Queen's Building that opened in 1955 is described and de Havilland Comets already form part of the fleets of "silver air giants" that "sweep in and out in a ceaseless stream". Quick, pass me a packet of Paynes Poppets as it is all I'm missing to make the day complete.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:yqh2atawixxlb6ncx2fh73r6/bafkreifuk5zlp3trybiart2fas5ppzp6igv3cozcxprsdm4ll67nhhsf7i)
