Queen lived as a girl. It is forty square miles of arcadian glory on the very edge of London, yet relatively few people visit it and hardly any plunge into its bosky interior.
The Long Walk ends with a slow climb to the summit of Snow Hill, where there is a giant equestrian statue of King George III and panoramic views of Windsor Castle and all the countryside around. Henry VIII, it is often said, rode up to this point to listen for the canons of London announcing the execution of Anne Boleyn. Everything was lovely except the sky. Planes wheeled just overhead, dragging shadows over the earth, as they prepared to land at Heathrow, five miles off to the east. They were low enough that I could read the serial numbers on their undersides, and very loud—louder even than at Wraysbury because Windsor is directly on a flight path. Goodness knows what it will be like for the people west of London if Heathrow gets a third runway. Already nearly half a million flights a year come and go at Heathrow. A third runway would increase that to 740,000. At what point do people decide that enough is enough?
I think we are there already. I am forever booking flights from London to distant places, and I can’t remember ever not having lots of choices of every type—of airlines, times of departure, times of return. Does anyone really need 50 percent more of plenty? The argument is that if Heathrow doesn’t expand, other European airports will steal its business. Charles de Gaulle airport, it is pointed out, handles ten million fewer passengers a year than Heathrow, but has four runways to Heathrow’s two. Amsterdam has 20 million fewer passengers but six runways. If Heathrow doesn’t build new runways, the argument goes, it will stop being able to compete. The question that occurs to me is then why hasn’t that happened already?
I’ll tell you what people will actually get with another runway. They will get more takeoffs and landings, but in smaller planes. There used to be five or six flights a day between Chicago and the other main cities of the Midwest. Now you may get a dozen flights a day, perhaps even more, but in tiny regional jets seating thirty people with their knees jammed up against their faces. So you have more choice but a much poorer service. With small planes, for one thing, it is much easier to cancel undersold flights and put everyone on the next plane.
Do you know, incidentally, why Heathrow was built where it is? After the war the task of choosing a location for a new London airport was given to Alfred Critchley, a Canadian-born businessman who had made a fortune first by promoting greyhound racing and then by getting into cement in a big way, so to speak. He consolidated a whole bunch of small cement makers into the mighty enterprise known as Blue Circle and became hugely wealthy in the process. During the war, Critchley helped to set up training programs for fliers, and because he knew a little about aviation and a great deal about the pouring of cement he was given the job after the war of deciding where to build a new airport to replace the old aerodrome at Croydon. I had always assumed that Heathrow was selected for some important practical reason—the porosity of the subsoil or depth of the water table or something—but in fact Critchley chose it because it was halfway between his house in Sunningdale and his office in London.
Critchley died in 1963 before Heathrow became the colossus it is now, so he had no idea what he was inflicting on the world. The Heathrow he last saw was still a place of pleasure and excitement. I happen to own three packets of Viewmaster discs of Heathrow from that period and they are a marvel to behold for they show that Heathrow in those days had about sixteen airplanes and a few dozen well-dressed customers. One man with an excellent mustache seemed to run the control tower all by himself. The terminals were sleek, modern, and practically empty. Everyone involved in the check-in
The Long Walk ends with a slow climb to the summit of Snow Hill, where there is a giant equestrian statue of King George III and panoramic views of Windsor Castle and all the countryside around. Henry VIII, it is often said, rode up to this point to listen for the canons of London announcing the execution of Anne Boleyn. Everything was lovely except the sky. Planes wheeled just overhead, dragging shadows over the earth, as they prepared to land at Heathrow, five miles off to the east. They were low enough that I could read the serial numbers on their undersides, and very loud—louder even than at Wraysbury because Windsor is directly on a flight path. Goodness knows what it will be like for the people west of London if Heathrow gets a third runway. Already nearly half a million flights a year come and go at Heathrow. A third runway would increase that to 740,000. At what point do people decide that enough is enough?
I think we are there already. I am forever booking flights from London to distant places, and I can’t remember ever not having lots of choices of every type—of airlines, times of departure, times of return. Does anyone really need 50 percent more of plenty? The argument is that if Heathrow doesn’t expand, other European airports will steal its business. Charles de Gaulle airport, it is pointed out, handles ten million fewer passengers a year than Heathrow, but has four runways to Heathrow’s two. Amsterdam has 20 million fewer passengers but six runways. If Heathrow doesn’t build new runways, the argument goes, it will stop being able to compete. The question that occurs to me is then why hasn’t that happened already?
I’ll tell you what people will actually get with another runway. They will get more takeoffs and landings, but in smaller planes. There used to be five or six flights a day between Chicago and the other main cities of the Midwest. Now you may get a dozen flights a day, perhaps even more, but in tiny regional jets seating thirty people with their knees jammed up against their faces. So you have more choice but a much poorer service. With small planes, for one thing, it is much easier to cancel undersold flights and put everyone on the next plane.
Do you know, incidentally, why Heathrow was built where it is? After the war the task of choosing a location for a new London airport was given to Alfred Critchley, a Canadian-born businessman who had made a fortune first by promoting greyhound racing and then by getting into cement in a big way, so to speak. He consolidated a whole bunch of small cement makers into the mighty enterprise known as Blue Circle and became hugely wealthy in the process. During the war, Critchley helped to set up training programs for fliers, and because he knew a little about aviation and a great deal about the pouring of cement he was given the job after the war of deciding where to build a new airport to replace the old aerodrome at Croydon. I had always assumed that Heathrow was selected for some important practical reason—the porosity of the subsoil or depth of the water table or something—but in fact Critchley chose it because it was halfway between his house in Sunningdale and his office in London.
Critchley died in 1963 before Heathrow became the colossus it is now, so he had no idea what he was inflicting on the world. The Heathrow he last saw was still a place of pleasure and excitement. I happen to own three packets of Viewmaster discs of Heathrow from that period and they are a marvel to behold for they show that Heathrow in those days had about sixteen airplanes and a few dozen well-dressed customers. One man with an excellent mustache seemed to run the control tower all by himself. The terminals were sleek, modern, and practically empty. Everyone involved in the check-in
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