Happy memories

And now for something completely different. I'm a big fan of the UK version of The Apprentice with the acerbic Sir Alan Sugar. For some reason he has always seemed vaguely familiar to me but having spent a lot of time around East-enders I brushed it off as a generic thing. Then I was reading this very entertaining interview and discovered he flys planes. Flys planes and he comes from Hackney?

In the late eighties and early nineties I was learning to fly at a North East London airfield called Stapleford. To pay for my lessons I would work in the bar/restaurant during the weekends. It was pretty much my life for a number of years. So I searched Alan Sugar Stapleford and sure enough, he has a plane based there. I probably served him the odd pint or two.

But I never got to fly his plane. Unlike other nouveau riche East-end lads who were always happy to let a young barmaid with her pilot's licence at the controls. They were good times.