When the Weight of the Paper...

This aviation/travel journal is an account of the author’s experiences in 59 years of travelling the globe. His half-Scottish roots may have something to do with his yearning for a desire to visit a number of cold-weather countries that many of us might stay away from, but might like to read about! There are some tropical visits and temperate ones too, but the latest tally has been 21 landings or take-offs within the Arctic Circle, and photos included in the book show Greenland, Iceland, Faroes, Svalbard (sometimes called Spitzbergen), The Falklands and Antarctica amongst others, but there are some in warmer temperature zones! Over those years of travel 124 separate trips have been made involving over 450 different flights. In the early years, many were propeller aircraft and then later jet transport but over that period 64 different types have been flown, and each is supported in the book by brief technical notes and a photo. The author’s work in airline operations and then later in the travel agency sector allowed him the opportunity to extensively travel the world and see these sights. Later in retirement, the travel bug has continued. Interspersed into the timeline of the book is the author’s autobiography of his time spent in the three countries he has lived in during his working life.

Graham was born in 1942 in NW London, the youngest of three. Family holidays were in UK until late teens when his first air trip overseas started the ball rolling. Following, he joined an airline at Heathrow in 1963 and worked there for 11 years before moving to Auckland, New Zealand, and worked with two further airlines for eight years before moving to Gold Coast Australia. Here he was involved in travel agency work from 1983 through to retirement in 2007 and continued travelling right through to 2020. This accounts for the varied destinations and countries he has visited in 59 years of travelling.