So you want to know about "chizum" then?
From the mists of time and the comet era when I started there worked
in Crewing a bloke of the name of Pete Aldridge who's claim to fame
was that he was a dead ringer for Col. Saunders -the KFC bloke!!
Anyway apart from cornering the market in safari suits and tank-tops
and shall we say eccentric,one of the guys in Crewing picked up not
only on certain mannerisms but also a particular phrase he spoke.
When he speaks to people he adjusts his specs and there is a slight
nod of the head and always says "cheers then". So as you can imagine
we latched on this and he became "Chizum" and this expression is
part of crewing folklore,everyone in Crewing and Ops would know who
you were talking about if you said chizum! It's totally integrated now
and it still has it's funny side,one crew member in Airtours asked for
their travel locator and I replied with the famous appelation. The dozy

twonk only went up yo the BA ticket desk and quoted ref C.H.I.Z.U.M !!
There you have it! I think it was a chap called Andy Renvoize who
actually first coined the expression with the add on of "George!"
Well,we were a lot younger in them days!

Then there's my story of one fam flight -aka "jolly" on the comet down
to NCE
Unfortunately for the engineer (think his name was
Geary,antipodean chap) the bogs are the back were u/s so he tried to
clear them on turnround. I was detailed to stand at the bottom of the
stairs and stop punters from boarding and try to explain to handling
what was going on. You can picture it,there's me,telling the frogs
,l'engineer est dans le derriere.....all in my best franglais!
There was a muffled thump followed by an extremely loud cry of
"SHIT!!!" He appeared at the top of the stairs covered in what he had
just cried out!
The rest of the crew and myself nearly wet ourselves laughing! The
F/D was hilarious on the return sector,comments of strange smells,lots
of sniffing and so on. I think the skipper was Joe Wright but not sure.

Rgds and Chizum!
Stu

Stuart Eccles