LIKE DUCKS TO WATER

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 109, 5 November 1934, Page 6

LIKE DUCKS TO WATER

: CHILDREN AND FLYING i "■ There is no question, - nowadays i about the young generation -becoming ! 'air-minded.' Children take to flying . just like ducks to water." | This remark was made by an. Im- , penal Airways official^ the other day \ when, on the arrival of the air mail t from. Africa at the Croydon airport, t it was found that one the passengers | was a child of three years of age, who I had flown: from Salisbury, .in Southern ; Rhodesia, to London, a distance of 6475 I miles. "Wo are growing quite accustomed," » ho added, "to seeing boys and girls > of not more than six or seven alights ing from machines which arrive from - the Continent. Ofter children travel1 ; alone on one of these aerial journeys, being placed in the care of the airway staff, and making their journeys in per- • feet comfort and safety. Not long.ago' ; there was the case of a baby boy, only L six weeks old, who made a .-journey by ! air with his parents even before he had > travelled byl train. I "Among children passengers ar« I many flying to and from school, and, | in addition to those travelling between • London and the Continent, quite a numI her now make long-distance journeys , along our Empire routes. Boys of • girls who are at Softool in England, and . whoso parents are at some point, per- • haps thousands of miles away, which it ! served by one or other of the Empire aif ; lines, can now fly home for the holidays ' ; in a matter of days, whereas by surface ; transport such a journey might tak» wieeks, and—remembering that the trip * l both' ways has to be taken into coni sideration—would often occupy so muck , time that it would t>e impracticable.----1 ' "One of our officials wio can reinem- ! ber the pioneer days of air travel re- . calls-the fact that one of the first child ; passengers on the Continental routes was a little American boy. That was '. in the quite early' flays of the London- : Paris service, when thef machines and . the organisation were in a veryrudi- ! mentary stage, compared with the ' facilities available today. It appears that this pioneer child traveller flew | to Paris with his.parents and, on ar--1 rival a,t Le Bourgct, his father asked him what he thought of.-the trip. At which the little boy replied with, a grin: 'Geo, Pop! It's a game!.' t "This somewhat cryptic observation, worded in the American slang prevalent at that time, was meant to indicate the little boy's extreme pleasure* afc his experience. He insisted, in fact, that, their return journey to London should be made by air, and his attitude was characteristic of all child travellers from that day to this.".,