I told them we were meeting up for lunch - but it was all a ruse! We were meeting in the above car park because it was really close to my planned surprise destination...
The Concorde Viewing Park at Manchester Airport.
Why was this a nice surprise, you may ask? I remember back in the late 1970s / early 1980s. Concorde used to visit Liverpool for the Grand National. Mum would either drag us out of the house (or later on, the Shop or the Restaurant) on the Saturday afternoon, to watch it fly over - usually twice in the day. Going back a little further, I remember camping out at Eastham Woods, waiting for it to fly over. I seem to remember there were Fish and Chips involved (mind you, F&C are ALWAYS involved if you're going to Eastham Woods, it's the Law)
Note the excellent vantage point for seeing the planes taking off and landing at Liverpool Airport!
In subsequent years, Mum has always followed the Concorde story in the press, and always imagined that one day she might get to fly on it. I think the thought of a long haul flight (something she'd never contemplate) was always made better by the knowledge of how much less time it would take to do the same journey on Concorde.
Obviously after the double tragedy of the Paris crash in 2000, and then the 9/11 attacks in New York in 2001, the aviation industry was decimated and noone was flying. The Concorde programme was shut down in 2003. This meant that Mum was never going to get on board a Concorde.......or was she?
I discovered that the BOA-C Concorde, the flagshop of the fleet, was flown to Manchester and then housed in a hangar there and being made available for visitors to go and see it.
So, after a little bit of planning and some stealth, we found ourselves clambering up the stairs, to the flight deck of Concorde.
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| Check out Captain Mum! |
And here are our other photos.....
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