Maldives

Today, our kids talk about going for the ultimate luxury holiday to the Maldives a group of islands in the Indian Ocean. They spend thousands of pounds on accommodation which consists of huts on stilts in the ocean from which they can dive and snorkle etc. These packages include all food and drink. Sounds wonderful!

I remember when I went there in the late 60s early 70s but not on holiday. I used to fly in regularly to an island called Gan where there was only one woman who lived there on any sort of permanent basis whilst sharing the island with a few hundred men! Believe me, whenever a woman arrived on the island, everyone knew about it and that woman could look dreadful but always be treated like a million dollars. Gan used to be the safest place I have ever been to. I loved to walk out at night and do so on my own without any problems at all. Why??????????????????

This was Royal Air Force Gan and I then worked in the Royal Air Force as a Loadmaster on VC10 aircraft! As part of aircrew I used to fly in there roughly twice a month on a journey that took me from UK, Bahrain, Gan (transit) and onwards to Singapore and/or Hong Kong. Then the return journey departed Singapore/Hong Kong, Gan, Cyrpus - all RAF bases. In Gan we stayed for anything from 24 hours to 5 days and we were paid too! It was great for us who travelled regularly but for those men who had to spend from 9 - 13 months on an unaccompanied tour, it was hard. You can have too much sun, sand and beer.

Still, that is another story for another time!