Last updated 19:44, Thursday, 31 July 2008
WORKINGTON to London – in two hours – by plane!
Wouldn’t that be fantastic? Just imagine – leave Workington at 10am – arrive London 12noon; leave London at 6pm and be back in Workington by 8pm.
Forgive me if I take time out to peer at the pigs flying past my window.
But that’s what a firm called West Cumberland Air Services was advertising in 1947. I’ve got the ad in front of me, in which they “are pleased to announce ‘Facilities of Air Transport’ for the following number of passengers: - two, three, seven, nine and 21 per aircraft to any part of the United Kingdom, Europe, etc.”
This Workington firm, at 19 Dean Street, announced that they were also taking bookings for both the FA and the Rugby League Cup finals. Ideal for supporters “up for the cup”. Leave Workington at 10, see the match and be back home in time for late dinner. Ideal also for those intent on retail therapy in London – or, for the more affluent, in Paris. London and back in four hours! In 1947 – or 2008. Sounds too good to be true. Was it?
Did you ever fly down to London, or anywhere else, with this firm?
What planes did they use? Where did they fly from? From Workington or from one of the many airfields nearby? Lots of questions – and few answers.
An airport for Workington? Not a hope! But that wasn’t always the case. Serious consideration was being given in 1948 to establishing a small airport at Schoose, considered by many to have been the best landing site in the area.
But then a similar scheme was put forward in 1934, using Schoose as a landing area, by Councillor Wigglesworth. Security from air attack was then a consideration – from, if you believe it, the Irish Free State. A West Cumberland Times editorial thought that, in the event of a war, the Southern Irish could well have been “so stirred by memories of past wrongs as to drench us with all sorts of nasty gases”.
The editor did not want us to be reliant on air defence from Carlisle and felt that the west deserved its own “succouring squadron”.
But what about Carlisle to London? One of these days someone will bite the bullet. Carlisle Airport should have happened years ago. All that was required was faith and foresight - qualities in short supply. It has been a sorry saga, one yet to be resolved.
It was going to be all so different in 1934, when anything and everything was seemingly possible. In that year, General W Spedding, councillor for both Keswick and the county council, chartered a 10-seater plane to take fellow Keswick councillors on an hour long flight over the Lake District.
He wanted to awaken their interest in air travel. He wanted Keswick to have its own aerodrome. More than that, he wanted Keswick to be the airport for the Lake District, being so ideally situated to attract tourists to the area.
Talking to the press, he said that “local authorities and other responsible bodies should get busy and see that this part of the world was not left behind”. He also believed that “all local authorities should endeavour to arrange for landing places for all types of aircraft where possible in their vicinity”. He envisaged a network of such landing sites covering the whole country. Spedding was a visionary. He’d picked up on air pioneer Sir Alan Cobham’s slogan of “Make the skyways Britain’s highways!” We’re still waiting.
But just imagine, Keswick having the major airport for the Lake District. What was that about little pigs flying past my window?
