In 1971 I travelled on a jet for the first time in my young life. I was just 8 years old and my parents (that is, my father) decided that we would take a trip to England. He had been stationed in Bournemouth during the war, loading bombs onto Lancasters to drop in Germany, and wanted to see ol' England again. It was March, still a cold month in northern Ontario, as we headed to Toronto to take a 707 via BOAC.
My parents had paid off their mortgage and had money to burn. My mother in 1970 had started writing letters to possible relatives in Australia and England, hoping, by chance, for a hit. All the letters from Australia came back 'deceased', but a cousin in England answered my mother and that started a decades-long connection of overseas travel.
It was certainly a different time. I was in travelling clothes, a little suit and tie. We all sported maple leaf pins so the British would know we were Canadians, and part of the Commonwealth. My brother and I, upon check in, received a packet from the clerk at the check in counter. I was honourably enrolled in the Junior Jet Club. I got to meet the captain, get his signature in my logbook, and tour the cockpit.
After landing, I marvelled at the fact that flowers were in bloom at Heathrow, care of the Gulf Stream, and where we had left there was still snow on the ground. My cousin lived in Virginia Water outside London, in a grace-and-favour called The Clock Case. Past a gate and down a leafy winding road I saw rabbits racing in the green. Virginia Water would later become famous as the spot where Augusto Pinochet was under house arrest, to be paraded before the International Court for his war crimes in Chile. My cousin's husband had worked as a gardener and landscaper in Windsor Great Park, and upon his retirement the Queen had granted him the property as a tenant. It was a common practice with the sovereign at the time. He had passed away by the time we first visited, but she was there at least until the 1980s when I visited again as a young man during Thatcher's time in office.
One day in those two or three weeks in England, my cousin told us we were going to take a trip to a polo pitch and it was sort of 'hush hush'. Clearly, something was afoot as my father had rented a car. My brother and I, with my mother, travelled in my cousin's Vauxhall. My sister and my dad took the rented car. When we got to the pitch nothing much was happening. There were a few cars and horse trailers. As time went on, more cars and horse trailers arrived. There was going to be a match. At one point my cousin got our attention after a very sleek Aston Martin DB6 peeled onto the grounds. It was the Prince of Wales in the sports car his mother had given him on his 21st birthday. No visible security. Probably the reason the game was known to only a few.
To our surprise, Charles decided to change right there next to the field. To my sister's absolute delight she snapped a picture of him shirtless as he was changing with her Kodak Duoflex 620. I do remember she moved onto the pitch to get as close as she could as we were on the other side.
