I remember one event from my first business flight out of Elmdon. I was working in Redditch then, and the company had a Dutch partner, so I was off to Holland. It was very cold weather. The plane would have been a Vanguard or a Viscount, you will remember when they used to be comfortable, unlike the later BAC111 cattle wagons. Memory is hazy, it may have been my very first flight ever, Julie and I went to Austria around the same time, but that was in a 737. We were all sat waiting, and there was a bit of a commotion on the ground round one of the engines. Suddenly a loud bang and a flash from the engine, and it started to reluctantly turn. I was told later that they used an explosive device to start engines as a last resort. After that, everything was fine.
Andrew.