I’m a happy bear

It was a beautiful hot summers’ day in 1981 at Gatwick. One of those days at Gatwick that can be a total joy. The Passenger Transport division of Gatwick Handling was best known as being based in (Atlantic House) we had however, originally been based in a tiny office at the very end of the old north pier till they knocked it down and built the Satellite.

That old office overlooked stand 38. The one advantage of being there was the joy of watching the arrival of the Laker Miami flight in the early morning, particularly on a frosty one.

You could tell when that flight was coming onto stand 38 because the Laker engineering vans would start gathering around the stand area. The reason was that all the young ladies, having departed Florida in hot and humid conditions would come down the steps in their scantily dressed attire and suddenly be confronted by the coldness of a Gatwick dawn. Do organ stops comes to mind?

Back to that beautiful hot day at Gatwick, our main task at Gatwick in Passenger Transport was to operate the single deck ‘Dennis built’ buses and transport passengers when their aircraft arrived, or departed on a remote stand. That operation usually meant driving out to a remote parking area called the west park.

On this day we had issued a couple of drivers to take buses out and meet a British Island Airways arrival inbound for the west park. Radio procedure in those days was strict and the radios were to be used only for the purpose of instruction and information. Knowledge of the phonetic code was necessary. On this day however, one of the wag drivers sitting in his cab and basking in the sun decided to go outside of that procedure.

A radio was keyed and a voice came across the airways, saying “I’m a happy bear” a long silence ensued until another radio was keyed and a voice said “I’m a happy bear too” this was too much for the controller of the day (Graham Hasemore, bless him), he keyed his desk mike in the office and said “Stick to radio procedure please”

The radio waves fell silence once more until a mike was keyed again and a voice said. “He’s not a happy bear is he”