Imperial Airways flying boats

Imperial Airways started their flying boat service in Southampton as far as I recollect that was the early part of '38.  When they first started, they used to tie up to a buoy down off Hythe where they had their repair shops, and passengers, baggage and mail, what-have-you was transported from there by launch.  After consultation between the Transport and General Workers Union and Imperial Airways as it was then, it was decided that the aircraft, immediately they became waterborne they were a ship, and it was decided that flying boats should be treated as ships and therefore as such any cargo, baggage etc that was handled to or from the flying boats, must be done by registered stevedores or registered dockers.  Well, Imperial Airways said they wanted four men to receive the baggage, mails and so on from the launches in Southampton dock and to handle the passengers through to train or what have you.  Anyway I got the tip off, being a very active trade unionist and so on, I suppose, these jobs were vacant and the applications in the first place had to be made to the Union, so I was one of the first four.  We were then interviewed by the Station Officer and accepted after we'd been recommended by the Union and we opened up the service.  The mail was brought out from the shed where we used to handle the baggage and mails and everything and we had a reception desk there. The building's still there, Imperial House, and they built these big office there for all the office work, but all the mail and everything was handled in the shed, in fact the bags usually were already weighed before they came down to us, and we used to sort out the different ones so as to allow the mail for what we used to call the far ports to be put in first so that when the kite landed there was the least possible delay, they could take it straight out you see.  And all the bags were...they were all numbered.  Once that was all done, which only used to take a few minutes, pushing the lads around it, get the job done quickly.  You wanted as little delay as you possibly could because they used to leave on daybreak and the passengers were pulled out of their beds at the hotel in that early hour and they didn't want to be messed around waiting about, so you got everything loaded up. Then they ran all the engines up, the kite by the way had had a test flight the night before, … load all the baggage mail up. Run the engines up. As soon as the engineer said everything was alright they'd then top up with fuel, the passengers would come down and as soon as they were aboard that was it.  She'd rev up and as soon as he got the sufficient engine revolutions to … to start, he would just put his hand up and slip the tail wires.  Then of course she'd taxi way down because they were supposed to...they were supposed to taxi down clear of the dock head.  Some of those skippers could take off pretty fast if they had a bit of a headwind so as to get the lift. Whoever was the RAF Foreman used to watch and note the time they were airborne and that was it.  And then you'd warp the next one in and get on with that.  Because you'd sometimes have three or four kites away in one day, you see.  Of course, the reason for getting them away early in the morning like that was because they never used to fly at nighttime. You see, they used to always make a port of call before dark so it depended on what time they left here, how far they got in the first day and the longest home run that I remember in one day was from Alexandria to Southampton in one day, and that meant making a stop at Athens first, Rome or Brindisi, Marseilles, and then to Southampton and the passengers used to go ashore, go into a hotel and get out again the next morning and pick the plane up again.  I should imagine it was pretty comfortable travelling because they … they had the two decks, they had a seat deck, and then they had bar/lounge, and as I say they weren't all that fast.  They were four engine jobs. It was a very efficiently run service but, looking back, I can understand why some of these airways, since the war, have lost money because they were definitely, in my opinion, overmanned.  Tremendous amount of money was spent on uniforms and whatnot for all that, because everybody was fitted out with uniforms you know.  Made to measure by Miller, Rayner and Haysom.  As far as berthing the kite was concerned, it was a great help if the skipper had been merchant captains in charge of ships because they would manoeuvre the kite in such a way that they'd come straight in, pick the head rope up and before he'd hardly got the head rope up you'd could have the tail wires on and start warping her back.  That all meant time.  It used to just go like clockwork.  I would say that they were probably the safest aerial transporters that's ever been used because all the time they were running they never lost a passenger, they only lost two kites.