It was sometime during January or February (I think) that Carol flew home to the UK for a week to see her Dad and to see if she could talk some sense into him; since his wife Babs had left him he had hit the bottle big time and wouldn’t listen to any of the family. I can’t say I was overjoyed about Carol flying at three months pregnant but I understood her need to go home and so had to put those concerns to one side. I’m fairly sure I took some leave that week but no doubt also had the support of friends and the Naval Wives Club with the girls.
(1977 Out and about with the children in gibraltar)

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Carol wasn’t the best air traveller in the world in fact to date she had only had one flight in her life and that was out to Gibraltar. Her brother John had arranged to meet her at London Heathrow and take her back down to Wales but things didn’t go quite as smoothly as hoped. I learned later from Carol that the undercarriage of the plane wouldn’t go down on the approach to the airport and so flight staff had to rip up the carpets and belt it with a sledge hammer till it did. I can’t imagine what went through people’s heads as they watched that let alone a novice traveller. 

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Back in Gibraltar I had a week on my own with the girls and though my memory of that week is quite sketchy I do know we got out and about a bit. I hated being separated from Carol but needs must and my main focus of the week was to occupy the children and ensure they felt secure while Carol was away. 

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Carol’s week away was far more emotionally heavy than mine, she had always been close to her dad and the break-up from his wife had been very distressing for him. Without going up that road it had been a quite cruel experience for him and so Carol had a lot of work to do to get him to ease off the booze. Having alcohol dependent issues myself I understood where Viv was coming from in terms of him hitting the booze; sometimes we all need to drown our sorrows. Unfortunately once he had started drinking heavily it was extremely difficult to encourage him to stop particularly when there was little incentive to offer him. I didn’t envy Carol’s lot.

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Of course this was in the days before mobile phones or Internet and although (I think) we had a couple of phone calls we didn’t discuss anything in depth; I probably reassured Carol the children were fine and she probably said something similar about her Dad. We wouldn’t really have a good talk about it all until she came home.

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When the day finally arrived for Carol to come home I took the children to the airport to see her plane land. Just as it was touching down I said to the children to wave to Mummy on the plane and as they did the plane revved up and took off again. As the three of us watched the plane go back up into the air I remember saying something stupid like ‘Ah that was a practice, they’ll be landing in a minute’ although my stomach was in my mouth. When it happened for a second time I was almost at the point of projectile vomiting and finding it almost impossible to explain things to the children. Finally the plane landed on the third attempt and it later transpired that the pilot was inexperienced at landing in Gibraltar while trying to avoid going into Spanish air space. After two dodgy flights and a week trying to sort out her dad I think it’s fair to say Carol was very relieved she was home; so was I.

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