I was watching Slow Horses the other night and as usual, there was some sort of terrorist-related mayhem which had brought London to a standstill. But there was also a little anachronism. Hovering over the gridlocked traffic was a light aircraft, once commonly known as an ‘Eye in the Sky’ that used to fly above London in the morning rush hour to report on the traffic for local radio stations.
They haven’t been a thing for about 25 years but when Heart first started in the mid-90s, I was their airborne traffic reporter.
I’d always loved radio and had foolishly imagined that this might be the way to get my broadcasting career off to a flying start. Being part of the breakfast show on a brand new radio station, what’s not to love? As it turned out, quite a lot.
When I arrived at Abridge airfield, I couldn’t even spot the plane.
‘That’s it over there’, said Ken the pilot, pointing to a tiny and seemingly ancient aircraft.
‘But surely’, I said, ‘that’ll never get off the ground with two of us on board’.
‘Two of us?’ he laughed. ‘No, no, there’ll be seven of us.’
That was my first surprise. I was one of six traffic reporters crushed into a plane no bigger than an Airfix model. Realising that I’d have to learn to speak with my knees in my mouth, I vowed I’d never again moan about the lack of legroom on a Ryanair flight.
Somehow, the Airfix model wobbled and wheezed its way into the sky. Abridge airfield shrank slowly – very slowly – to the size of a Green Shield Stamp and I closed my eyes and tried not to think about Buddy Holly, John Denver or Jim Reeves.
I opened them and looked at my five fellow reporters who’d all been doing this for years. They too had harboured grand ambitions of stellar radio careers but it was instantly apparent that those dreams were just pie in the sky.
They were bashful, unprepossessing creatures who instantly adopted singy-songy ‘Smashie and Nicey’ voices when it was their turn to speak. It was almost unbearably sad but squashed in among them, I realised I was part of this tragic tableau.
Then came my next surprise. To save money for their employers, they all had multiple identities. The anoraked fantasist next to me gave his first report as ‘Simon Smith for Essex Radio’. Seconds later, he was ‘Andy Brown for County Sound Gold’.
Then came the biggest surprise: you can’t actually see any traffic. London is a dense and built-up city, so you can see lots of tall buildings and lots of trees but you can’t really see any cars. All traffic information came via our headsets from a central control room monitoring London’s growing network of CCTV cameras.
So why were we even doing this? Simon/Andy explained that listeners thought live traffic reports from a plane were ‘sexy’. Sexy? That rank, dank little plane was about as sexy as a sewage works
Round and round we went, up and down, jolting and rolling until it was time for my final and most unpleasant surprise. As I prepared to give my first report, I suddenly had to grab the sick bag and all Heart listeners would have heard was ‘Bleurggghhhh!!’
Nobody told me that you had to take an anti-sickness pill before you took to the skies. Now deathly pale and vocally useless, I had to hand my broadcasting duties to the traffic reporter sitting half a millimetre to my right.
After what seemed like a long haul flight to Tokyo, we finally came down to earth with a bump and I staggered back to reality.
The following morning, I took the pill, went up again and it was fine. Pointless and depressing but fine. Upon landing, I just happened to glance at the pill packet and saw the words. ‘May cause drowsiness’. It might as well have said. ‘Cancel all plans for the next fortnight’. When I regained consciousness several hours later, I decided to cancel one plan – and ambition – forever. And I never took to the skies as a reporter ever again.
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