In 1954 I was in Aden on an extended holiday before going to University. My father, Mark Berryman objected to my hedonistic lifestyle and said I should earn some money rather than expecting ‘handouts’, this resulted in an interview taking place at the bar at Goldmohur Beach Club with Jack Chambers, Sales Superintendent of Aden Airways.

Mr. Chambers offered me a position as  booking clerk in the office in the hotel annexe at EAS350 per month. Betty Hudson was my superior for a short while, she was then followed by the elegant and glamorous Joan Goldsmith and then by Rita Witham.

The corner office was large and airy – not air-conditioned, and adjacent to the Italian hairdresser so we saw the latest in ‘before and after’ styles passing by. The working day was divided into two shifts, 0800 to 1300 and 1300 to 1800.

The uniform for ground staff was a white linen skirt and white blouse with epaulettes, but I managed to avoid wearing the navy blue cap. My introduction to airline work consisted of filing large quantities of amendments to B.O.A.C. manuals and counting the ticket stocks at the start and end of each shift: large bundles of two and four coupon tickets and Miscellaneous Charges Orders.

Eventually I was allowed to make bookings through Space Control at the Crater Office and progressed to looking after clients who called by, usually to confirm or ‘horrors’ to amend, the itinerary of their onward journey. Today’s travel clerks with their computerised booking systems have missed the joys of computing the fare for a journey ‘by hand’. A B.O.A.C. manual gave fares for worldwide journeys with the mileage allowed for that fare so for non-straightforward itineraries the mileage for each section of the journey to be travelled – and that included the transit stops of the aircraft – had to be totalled and the appropriate fare, with percentage increases charged. With Aden as a transit stop between north, south, east and west, and the Crescent the only hotel, I was kept pretty busy adding up the miles – with no calculator. This method of calculating fares continued into the 1970s.

To extend my knowledge of booking procedures Aden Airways sent me on a familiarisation course in February 1955 with visits to the B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. offices in Khartoum, Cairo, and London and I returned full of enthusiasm for the booking systems that I had seen in operation.

Very occasionally I was called to fill in at the last moment as a flight attendant and my first such flight stays in my memory. From the office I went straight to Khormaksar  presumably collecting a passport and toothbrush en route and was hustled onto a DC3 bound for Assab and Addis Ababa. The flight bag was thrust at me, the doors shut and with no training I had to make do as best I could. When we landed at Assab I handed over the flight bag with all the ship’s papers and forgot to collect it before we took off so when we landed in Addis there was a terrible palaver. Then on my return to Khormaksar the following day when the aircraft door was opened, the lady in charge of cabin crew reprimanded me for having a dirty uniform. Nevertheless I was occasionally asked to do other flights.

Later in 1955 the office moved from the Annexe into the main entrance of the hotel and I was then able to run the office on by myself. It was a great place to be as I saw all the comings and goings of the hotel rather than just the hairdresser’s clients!

I left Aden at the end of 1955, but it was another 50 years before I continued my studies at University.  Aden Airways gave me the travel bug and I spent the intervening years in the travel industry.  

Ann Berryman (now Atkinson) July 2008

 

Ann Berryman and Joan Goldsmith on the tarmac at the foot of the stairs