Passenger on first BA Concorde flight donates mementoes to museum

A “unique” collection of mementoes from the first British Airways Concorde flight has been donated to the museum housing the aircraft by a passenger who was on board.

The passenger, Anthony Hopkins, was one of those travelling the day commercial Concorde flights began on January 21 1976.

He was on the British Airways flight from London to Bahrain, while an Air France Concorde aircraft flew from Paris to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

Mr Hopkins, a businessman at the time, saved dozens of items from his journey including tickets, luggage tags, promotional material and even the onboard safety card.

Mementoes include a menu signed by passengers on the flight. PA Media

He also kept the in-flight menu, which was signed by almost everyone on board including the British broadcaster Peter Sissons.

It showed that passengers enjoyed a three course lunch preceded by caviar and lobster canapes and champagne, and had a choice of aperitifs and cocktails such as negronis and gin fizz.

Mr Hopkins has now donated his personal archive to the National Museum of Flight at East Fortune Airfield in East Lothian, where the British Airways G-BOAA aircraft has been housed since April 2004.

Ian Brown, assistant curator of aviation at the museum, said it was “amazing” to receive the donation which he described as “absolutely unique”.

Mr Hopkins, who lived in Sale, Cheshire, at the time of the flight, had brought the archive with him while visiting the museum on holiday and showed it to Mr Brown who said they would be delighted to have it.

The curator said: “There are only 100 people that got to be on that first flight as the passengers, so having this material from one of the people on that flight, which was the Concorde that we have here at the museum, was just amazing, and there is so much detail in there.

The aircraft is housed at the National Museum of Flight. PA Media

“There’s a menu from the flight, signed by most of the people on the flight, newspaper cuttings and things, so just a whole lot of context with his boarding pass and these luggage tags and all that kind of stuff – it really brings it to life.

“It’s not just the aeroplane, which beautiful as Concorde is, an aeroplane is a lump of metal – it’s people’s stories, it’s about Mr Hopkins and his experience of the flight, and that personalises it.

“It’s not just about the object. It’s about the people who were connecting to that object, so being able to tell personal stories about individual people is always what we would prefer to do.”

National Museums Scotland shared the news of the donation on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the inaugural BA flight in January 1976.

British Airways announced that it was retiring its fleet of Concordes in April 2003.

G-BOAA, now known as “Scotland’s Concorde” arrived at the National Museum of Flight on April 19 2004 and has since been visited by more than 1.5 million people.

The archive includes luggage tags issued for the flight. PA Media

Mr Brown said: “Concorde is renowned as an extraordinary feat of engineering and a symbol of luxury, even 50 years on.

“It is rare that personal archives such as this survive and make their way into museum collections, but they provide an invaluable insight into what it must have been like to be a passenger on one of the most significant flights in aviation history.

“We are grateful to Mr Hopkins for enabling us to reunite his collection with Golf-Bravo Oscar Alpha Alpha at the National Museum of Flight.”

The Concorde fleet was grounded in 2000 after an Air France Concorde crashed shortly after take-off at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, claiming the lives of 100, nine crew and four people on the ground.

Concorde returned in 2001 after a revamp but two years later British Airways announced that it was retiring its fleet of the aircraft.

The National Museum of Flight explores the history of aviation from the First World War to the present day, with aircraft on display including a Red Arrows Hawk and Supermarine Spitfire.