HE has helped villagers in Papua New Guinea, trained young recruits in Japan and led conferences in Taiwan - but his dream job has always been right here in Glasgow.

 

Airport chaplain Keith Banks, who has been a Salvation Army officer for 51 years, talks to ANN FOTHERINGHAM about living a life less ordinary - and landing the role he always wanted.....

KEITH Banks, airport chaplain, helps people feel better.

The nervous flyers, the recently bereaved, the stressed staff ...he helps them all get through their darkest times, leaving them lighter, happier and, well, more grounded.

"I'm a people person," he beams. "I've had such an interesting life, but here is where I always wanted to work. I was a youth officer, working all over Scotland in the early 80s, and I said back then - one day, I want to be chaplain at Glasgow Airport...."

"Interesting life" barely covers it. From almost losing his life in a brutal stabbing to having his wedding shown on the BBC News, Keith has some fascinating stories to tell.

Born in Reading, and now living in Inverkip, he joined the Salvation Army as a teenager, inspired by his parents and grandparents who took him along to services throughout his childhood.

"When I was eight, I used to pretend I was conducting services," he explains, adding with a laugh: "That sounds a bit sad, doesn't it? But I just knew it was what I wanted to do."

He met his wife, Pauline, through the SA, and their wedding was filmed and shown on the BBC News.

"Pauline was a member of the SA pop group the Joystrings who had a few hits in the 60s," explains Keith. "They had their own TV series too, and lots of newspaper coverage. So when she got married it was a bit of a big deal, and we ended up on television."

As youth officers, the couple settled in Scotland, where their son and daughter were born, and where Keith decided his dream was to return one day to the airport.

"I love the mystique and magic of airports and aviation," he smiles. "Glasgow Airport is like a mini-city, a microcosm of the world and all human life is here. And our prayer room, our little chaplaincy, is at the heart of it.

"I'm very fortunate that I get so much support from the management here, who trust me to do my job. That means a lot to me."

In the 80s, Keith narrowly survived a brutal attack in Papua New Guinea.

"We had been there just four months when I was robbed, beaten very badly and stabbed with bush knives," he recalls, adding in something of an understatement: "I had quite a time of it."

He managed to escape and is remarkably calm when recalling the incident.

"The people there had nothing, and Westerners came in with all their money and gadgets, and they wanted to have them," he says, simply. "I can understand that. It didn't put me off - we stayed for four years.

"It was a culture shock initially, because of the heat and humidity, the lack of roads and facilities - but I met some lovely people. There was a lot of poverty but equally, much contentment."

The couple were then posted to Japan but after only two years, they had to come home.

Pauline was very ill, with a rare cancer, and sadly she died in 2008. Keith talks lovingly of everything they shared before her death, including the chance to record a CD together.

"I like writing music, and playing the piano, and Pauline loved to sing," he says. "She always wanted to record a CD and in the few months' before she died, we managed to make it happen."

The sale of the CD raised £17,000, which Keith divided between the Ayrshire hospice which supported the couple before Pauline's death, and the Salvation Army's work in Papua New Guinea.

"I went out to give them the money and they unveiled a plaque in Pauline's memory, which was really lovely," he smiles.

"Six months after she died, I was offered the chaplaincy here at the airport. I nearly fell off my seat - I'd never really thought it would happen but I had always cherished the dream of coming here. And there it was, about to happen."

Keith grins: "Now I have been here just over five years, and I am so happy. It's not about preaching or bible-bashing, it's about being able to reach people in a way that's relevant to this generation.

"I often worry we are creating a generation of young people who don't trust anyone, who communicate with their fingers and computers rather than with their eyes and voices."

He adds: "I understand young people need to be wary, but it's so important they understand the value of one-to-one, face-to-face communication."

On his walk around the airport - he can clock up three miles on a busy day - Keith is stopped by everyone, from the patrolling police officers to cabin crew returning from overseas, from café staff to cheery passengers.

"Sometimes I do see people looking distressed, and I have to find the words to ask them if they need help," he says.

"Once I had to meet a woman coming off a plane, whose husband had died on the flight. On another occasion, I comforted a devastated family, who heard while they were waiting in the airport, that a young relative had died. It is very poignant, very moving."

There are lighter moments too - like Keith's intervention in the prayer room when a drunk man became "slightly boisterous" ("I discovered we had both lived in the same part of north London and that distracted him long enough to get him chatting and calm him down," he grins) - and the time he helped a young woman overcome her fear of flying.

"She was in the terminal, absolutely hysterical, crying that she could not get on the flight," recalls Keith. "I tried to calm her, and eventually she agreed to walk with me, and her husband followed us down. As we went down the steps, he whispered in my ear, 'please, Keith, get her on that plane - this is our honeymoon!'"

Keith smiles: "And we did it - she got on the plane. Everyone was extremely relieved."

ends