BY ROGER WATSON

Humberside Airport is twenty miles from Hull. Sitting in splendid isolation in the Lincolnshire countryside, it is not exactly a hive of activity. This makes it very endearing.

Other than the occasional chartered flight, KLM runs two flights a day to Schiphol and there is a regular stream of helicopters to offshore oilrigs. The Hull City FC owner and Turkish billionaire Acun Ilcali, who keeps a Bentley there, arrives for home games in his private jet.

But Humberside Airport is also the home of Eastern Airways from where they run a service within the United Kingdom and a few destinations in Europe. They no longer fly to Edinburgh but when they did I used them regularly. My point is that the airport is very quiet but one evening it was quieter than usual, which is where my story begins.

The sun was heading towards the horizon, late in summer, when my wife dropped me off at the entrance to Humberside Airport. There were no other cars dropping off and I soon found out why. I stepped into the main hall and from the desks opposite, about fifty yards away, the woman behind the desk shouted, ‘Mr Watson’. Standing with her was a baggage handler and as I walked across the hall the entrance door was locked behind me.

I suspected, and the woman at the desk confirmed, I was the only passenger flying out of the airport that evening. The baggage handler took my bag and walked out to the tarmac to put it on the plane. The VIP lounge was empty and unattended. I had a few glasses of wine until my flight was ‘called’. The baggage handler, now doubling up as an air traffic controller, knocked on the window and let me out of the emergency door and led me to the plane.

Sitting on the runway was not an Eastern Airways jet. Instead, there was a small jet which, instead of any Eastern Airways livery, had a Stewart tartan strip running along the side and ‘Flying Scotsman’ in large letters under the cockpit window. On boarding it was obviously a private plane with only a few seats and was cream coloured carpeted, floor and sides. One seat was occupied by a young girl in Eastern Airways uniform. Otherwise, I was the only passenger, and I was seated on the starboard side.

Then it dawned on me. The large Stewart family crest on the bulkhead behind the cockpit with the name ‘Jackie Stewart’ below it meant that this was indeed a private jet, it had belonged to the legendary Scottish Formula 1 racing driver, an icon from my youth. So far, so good.

We took off almost immediately and the young lady was soon serving me drinks. I pulled a sheaf of manuscripts for editing out of my briefcase and began to read and mark them up with my blue ink fountain pen. Between incisive blue flourishes on the pages, I leant against the carpeted side with my pen poised elegantly in my hand. Unknown to me and fuelled by a moderate amount of alcohol, having forgotten to cap the pen, the nib was resting on the carpet at about head height.

I finished my editing, packed the manuscripts and the pen away and decided to have a look out of the window. To my utter horror, beside the window there was a substantial patch of blue ink. My uncapped pen had leaked, and the carpet had absorbed the ink. I pulled out some tissues, started to rub and the only result was that an inch diameter blot began to spread and doubled in size.

A proper Mr Bean moment if ever there was one. I glanced at the young lady who was busy reading a magazine. She had seen nothing.

When she came to check if I wanted a final drink before landing, which I most certainly did, I made sure my head was hiding the blue blotch. When we disembarked, luckily, she went past me to the rear to open the door and lower the steps to let me off. I said my ‘goodbyes’ and sprinted out of the terminal at Edinburgh Airport as fast as possible. The return flight was made on a regular Eastern Airways plane.

Months later, having flown to Aberdeen with Eastern Airways, I descended to the tarmac to board the return flight. It was none other than the Flying Scotsman. This time I was not alone on the plane and was allocated a seat on the port side. Another passenger was in my seat from several months previous. I glanced over as I sat down and there beside the window opposite was that large blue blob on the carpet next to the window. I had indelibly stained Jackie Stewart’s private plane.

Eastern Airways no longer own Jackie Stewart’s plane, a G-IJYS British Aerospace Jetstream 32 for those with an interest. I have no idea who owns it now, but if they are reading this and the blue stain remains on the carpet beside the starboard window, I am ashamed to admit that … IT WAS ME!

Roger Watson is a Registered Nurse and Editor-in-Chief of Nurse Education in Practice.