WITH an impending flight to Birmingham, I found myself getting more and more anxious as the big day approached.

“Think about what’s really making you feel that way,” my good friend Christine suggested.

“There must be something that’s triggered it off.”

She was probably right, so I decided to put some time aside and sit down and have a good think about the reasons why I had become apprehensive about flying.

Immediately an incident sprung to mind when years ago I was on a flight bound for Australia.

Just as the huge jumbo gathered momentum along the runway at Bangkok Airport, the nose of the plane was about to lift, when unexpectedly the aeroplane braked fiercely for what seemed like ages before coming to a very abrupt halt.

Screaming passengers were thrown forward (me included) and icey cold water, which must have come from the overhead air conditioning units, started to pour down my neck.

And I remember thinking, “That was blinkin scary stuff.”

I assumed that we were then going to disembark from the failed flight to wait on another aeroplane to take us on our journey.

But no, the captain apologised over the tannoy and announced that we would ‘try again’.

Try again. Try again.

I was horrified and thought that this was an aeroplane we were in and not just a bloody car that had stalled.

Sure enough we circled the runway, got back into position, and took off safely.

However, 40 minutes into the flight the now familiar captain’s voice calmly announced that one engine had failed and we were heading back to Bangkok.

“That might well be the reason you’re nervous Janice,” Christine agreed after listening to my tale of travel misfortune.

But then I went on to tell her of the time I experienced a horrendous flight to Manchester.

Gale force winds caused the flight to rock from side to side, which was something I had never experienced before.

Three times we attempted to land, and three times we flew back up into the sky and circled round and round.

My mind was running wild with all sorts of impending disasters.

‘Will we be diverted to another airport.’

‘What if we run out of fuel.’

To allay my fears I decided to seek out the flight attendant for some kind of assurance.

But when I found her, much to my horror, the flight attendant was huddled in a brace position with her head under a blanket.

And I quickly surmised that all was not well.

“Oh my,” Christine shook her head at the very thought. “No wonder you were ill.”

“But I will try and be more positive,” I assured my pal.

But then I recalled another incident when I was on a flight to Miami to join a cruise ship.

All seemed to be going well until I discovered, much to my annoyance, that I was separated from the rest of our group and had to sit with strangers for the six hour flight.

I was in the aisle seat and to my right was Bill and his wife Irene.

We smiled and greeted each other with the usual pleasantries before I settled down to enjoy the peace and quiet on my own with a nice glass of red wine.

However, not long into the journey, somehow my sleeve caught the edge of the small drop down table and my glass of red wine went flying and splattered over my travel companion’s new beige holiday chinos.

Horrified, and in a panic, I started to dab Bill’s drenched chinos with every available napkin, while apologising profusely for my clumsiness.

On looking up, I noticed that Irene’s face was contorted with rage.

And I don’t think it was so much the fact that I had spilled red wine over Bill’s new chinos, no, it was more the fact that I kept dabbing her husband’s crotch.

The next five hours were rather tense to say the least.

I explained to my pal as I went on to tell her how things went from bad to worse because Bill’s suitcase had gone missing and all he had to wear for the first five days of his luxury cruise were a pair of shorts a fellow passenger had lent him and his laundered (but still stained) chinos.

“For a full week, I hid every time I saw the unlucky couple.”

Christine’s face said it all.

“And to make matters worse,” I continued.

“Guess who Bill and Irene got landed with again on the flight home.”

“Yep, me.”

“So all in all Christine,” I sighed.

“I can’t really narrow down my flying paranoia to just one incident.”