A New Day in India

We’re standing on a railway station platform in Madras, India, watching local women arrange their colourful baskets of flowers, ready to weave them into the hair of willing passersby for a few rupees
.

The platform is crowded. No-one takes any notice of the dead man lying in the corner, other than to step over him as the train pulls into the station.

On this day, life is cheap in India.

The train stops. First class is empty, second class quiet. The class with no name is overflowing, faces pressed at the bars of every window, hopefuls hanging out of the doors and climbing onto the roof. It’s a scene worthy of Michael Palin’s Around The World In 80 Days, only the book hasn’t been written yet.

We arrive at our destination. A beach hotel that we have swapped for three days in place of the crew hotel in the city.

We’re shown to our individual bungalows on the beach. The Indian Ocean is a stone’s throw away.

We’ve been told about the magnificent sunrise and decide to experience it. We order a wake up call for 3am and at 3.05am we carry some chairs down to the sand and sit.

We order tea and toast.

We sit.

The night is inky black but the stars are bright. It’s humid.

Our tea and toast arrives. The waiter seems unfazed by our choice of setting.

The sky is still inky black.

We sit.

We begin to yawn. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

And then suddenly like magic, a tiny sliver of light appears fleetingly on the horizon.

It disappears as quickly as it had come.

And then it happens. Little by little, more streaks of light, slowly at first and then spreading quickly.

The sun begins to rise, the orange glow becomes stronger by the second. And then we see them. The fishing boats on the horizon. Small wooden craft, manned by father and son. One navigates, one casts the nets.

And from silence comes the sounds of the fisherman, shouting, laughing, happy at their work.

It’s a gorgeous morning. We go to bed and sleep.

Later that day, we walk along the beach. A group of local children come over and smile. They walk with us. We wonder if they are looking for money.

They lead us up the beach to their families sitting mending fishing nets in the sun.

The children indicate we follow them into their small village on the beachfront.

People wave. People smile. Their life is simple and yet so organised.

They take us into their church. On a beach beside the Indian Ocean is the most exquisite little church.

They escort us back down to the waters edge. Collectively they grin, wave and are gone.

They just wanted to show us their world. And for that short space of time, there was nowhere in the world we would have rather been.

To Fly Or Not To Fly

We were coming in to land in Rio. The cabin was secure, the passengers gazing expectantly out the window waiting for the first glimpse of Sugar Loaf Mountain.

I returned to the galley and was putting on my lippy when I suddenly found myself flat on my back. Through turbulence. I laughed, picked myself up and strapped myself into the crew seat with only my pride slightly dented. Thankfully the 747 had a separate galley to the rear so I hadn’t taken a dive in full view of the passengers.


Other times I hadn’t been so lucky, but more often than not my naivety saved my blushes.


Like the time I was standing in the front galley of a 737 adjusting my stocking tops when I looked over to see the man in 1a following my every move with a big grin on his face. He shook my hand when he disembarked saying it was the best flight he’d ever been on.


Or helping a father attach the extension seatbelt for his baby, totally unaware of the sniggers and lewd comments coming from the rest of the group as my hands hovered dangerously close to his private parts.


Or leaning over to the window seat to serve a drink and accidentally giving the guy in the aisle seat a boob massage.


Need I go on?


Life was fun, if hard work. I walked for miles during an average flight and was fitter than most of my friends, even with their gym memberships. The night flights were the hardest. Sitting in the galley at 3am with a hot water bottle stuffed down the inside of your pinny, trying to stay awake until it was time to serve breakfast. Yes we had bunk beds in the tail of the 747. But invariably on the flights long enough to allow you the luxury of some time off, the minute you hit the bunk and strapped yourself in, the turbulence would start. Here’s a tip – if you don’t like turbulence, don’t sit at the back of the plane. It’s always worse there. And of course, there was the frequent indignity of the airport security insisting that you open your case, surely just to give the surrounding passengers a boost as they caught a glimpse into the life of the air hostess... or at least of their dirty underwear. Having survived all that, I used to lose the last shred of dignity that remained as I fell into a deep sleep on the shuttle back to Edinburgh, drooling down the shoulder of the unfortunate businessman in the seat next to me.


Oh yes, I was glamorous, me!


Fortunately, my friends didn’t think so. In fact, their brains couldn’t compute my life, and so they ignored it. Completely. I would come home from Buenos Aires, buzzing at the things I had seen and done, and my friends would listen politely and say “That’s nice” and in the same breath, “Did you see we got our new curtains?”


They didn’t keep in touch with me. I had to keep in touch with them. They couldn’t keep up with my busy schedule. But it didn’t bother me. That was just how it was. I slotted back into their lives as and when I could.


But after four years, I started to yearn for something more. And that something was normality. Perhaps it was the constant rounds of “Chicken or Beef? Tea or coffee?” Perhaps it was forever going on trips with crews I didn’t know and having to start all over again. At that time there were 10,000 BA crew members so the chances of flying with someone you knew were slim. For every trip on a 747, there was a crew of 14 between cabin and flight crew. Friendships were made quickly and just as quickly dissolved. You told people things you wouldn’t tell your best friend, knowing it was likely you would never see them again. You tended to drift towards likeminded people. Personally I preferred shopping and sightseeing over partying. Although, when we did party, we partied hard.


I longed for the chance to sleep in a bed, all night ever night.


So, when the Gulf War started and business took a nose dive (figuratively, not literally), BA offered us blocks of unpaid leave. Seizing my opportunity, I asked for a year off to go back to university to take a postgraduate business course with languages. BA said yes.


I was a student again and I loved it. I hadn’t particularly applied myself the first time around but this time I couldn’t get enough of studying. And of course I had the best of both worlds. Technically I was still employed by BA and had my staff travel perks. When most fellow students were heading home for Christmas to sponge off their parents, I was on the first flight out to Bangkok with my friends.


As the end of my sabbatical drew near, I was having nightmares of having to get back on a plane again and go back to my old life. I had changed too much. I had discovered a new life out there with a comfy bed thrown in for good measure. The bed won.


I look back on my time as an air hostess with affection. I have seen more places in the world than most people could ever imagine. I learned about life, I learned about people, I learned about myself. And as for the things I wouldn’t tell my best friend? As the saying goes, “What goes on tour stays on tour!”

The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow

I used to have an identity. I used to be someone. I was the one everyone wanted to talk to at parties. I was glamour personified. I was fun and perceived to be maybe just a little naughty. I was ... an air hostess.

In those days, the place names of Rio, Johannesburg, Nairobi, Caracas, Vancouver, Sydney, New York, Bangkok and Hong Kong tripped off my tongue. I jumped on and off planes like most people jump on the number 44 bus.


And then one day I hung up my uniform and became normal. I had a normal job, a normal life and I holidayed in Florida.

Ten years later and many several pounds heavier, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw someone else.

I saw a beige person. I was dressed in beige. What had happened to the brightly coloured clothes I had amassed from all over the world? My hair was beige where once it was fiery red, dirty blond or rich mahogany, depending on the whim of the moment. My life was beige. I had turned into a mum, a wife and a drudge.


Don’t get me wrong. I love being a mum. I love the chat at the school gates. I love the sense of community. And most of all, I love the love that comes from that little person. The smile that melts your heart. The chubby arms wound tightly around your neck.

But something was missing. I needed colour, I needed life. I needed to find the old me.

I took stock of my life. I was working in my husband’s business, living his dream, not mine. I was living in a place I hated, which made my heart heavy every time I drove into the village limits. I had lost my enthusiasm, my sense of adventure and worst of all, my self confidence.

They say that inside every old woman there is a young girl wondering what the hell happened. That was exactly how I was feeling , and I’d only just turned forty!

Little by little, I turned my life around. I retrained in Reiki and began helping others. We moved away from that ugly village where, if you weren’t born there, you were an “incomer”, an outcast, a social pariah. We moved to a vibrant village, full of like-minded people, community spirit and fun.

Then I met Paul McKenna at a seminar and my life changed for the better. I lost weight using his system. I decided to train as a hypnotherapist.


And I auditioned for the local theatre company. I was a closet karaoke queen. I had never sung in front of anyone in my life and suddenly I found myself standing in front of a panel of four with nowhere to hide. I opened my mouth, took a deep breath and sang louder than I had ever done in my life.

“The sun will come out tomorrow...”

And I knew that the sun would come out.

That if I was stuck with a day that was grey and lonely, I’d stick out my chin and grin and say “tomorrow’s only a day away”.