Nowadays catching a plane is as routine and unromantic as catching a bus, but back in the 1930s, before the war, civil aviation was a romantic, extraordinary world. To fly to Paris in the early 1930s you went to Croydon Aerodrome in Surrey, and caught a giant Handley-Page biplane that bounced along the grass airstrip to vigorously that seatbelts were most important of all before take-off. To fly to Africa in 1937 you went down to the docks in Southampton and boarded one of Imperial Airways' Empire flying-boats, which took you on a five-day aerial voyage to Durban via overnight stays at luxury...