When I was a boy, family holidays usually involved crossing the English Channel before making our way to the destination by car. Long before the Channel Tunnel, we would generally go by ferry which would be either Dover to Calais or Newhaven to Dieppe, depending on our destination. The ferries chugged across the Channel at 20 knots and the crossing took either an hour and a half or almost 4 hours.
But on a couple of occasions we flew on the short-lived Lydd to Le Touquet air ferry service. Originally set up by a retired Air Commodore, the service used elderly, converted Bristol 170 Freighters and Superfreighters as well as the slightly newer and larger Carvair. Each aircraft took 2 or 3 cars - maybe 5 in the Carvair - which were loaded into the front, and the passengers sat in a tiny cabin.
I had almost forgotten about the Lydd to Le Touquet flights until Lindsey mentioned them recently. She was reading Three Jays on Holiday by Pat Smythe (published in 1958) in which the air ferry was used to transport the characters and their car to France.
I found the flights exciting and boring in equal measure - a bit like air travel today. My first experience of flying, seeing the world from the birds’ eye view, was certainly exciting. But I had always enjoyed the ferries, with possibility of going up on deck and watching the coast slowly approach.
I’m fortunate as I have no problems flying or sailing but I’m not sure how popular the flights were with other family members. Either way, after a couple of years the Lydd to Le Touquet service stopped and we reverted to the ferry.