The fear of those flying machines still lingers on

Country Living with Francis Farragher

Generally, I like to think that I don’t suffer from phobias – apart that is from the usual fears of disease, pestilence, the world ending shortly, death, rats, speed vans, dandelions and letters that I won’t open because I know there’s a bill inside – but those few exceptions aside, the thought dawned me the other night that I’m on the verge of applying for membership of the non-flying club.

Maybe what has tipped me over the edge are the recent cases of planes being blown out of the sky and the odd weirdo pilot who decides that along with ending his own existence, he also wishes to bring a few hundred more souls with him for company, to find out definitively if there is an afterlife.

Being a creature who has shown the ultimate bravery in surviving many bouts of man flu over the years, I’ve managed to overcome my misgivings about the flying machines by going on family sun holidays and flights across the water to England, and even managed to cross the great Atlantic to see the Big Apple, but now in a sneaky and snivelling kind of way, I organise silent retreats whenever the possibility of a trip to foreign climes is mentioned.

Even more recently, I developed a convenient amnesia when it came to the renewal of my passport, knowing that if some unexpected trip had to be undertaken, the readymade excuse was available of the document being out of date. However when a lawman reminded me one night of the inconvenience of not having a passport should an emergency situation arise, I succumbed and applied for an update.

So now that excuse has fallen by the wayside, but the other night in the local hostelry, I nearly failed to keep down the second slug of the pint when the landlord mentioned if I was thinking of embarking on a trip to see a loved one about 11 hours away in the Far East. There was a conscience element to all of this too in that maybe I should consider such a journey but the thought of a day coming and going through the clouds, ended up taking the relaxation out of what should have been a night free from anxiety.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.