Error Of The Week (3)
For some unaccountable reason, I have been thinking about the erstwhile British Prime Minister, David Cameron. No, I’m not talking about Brexit but that famous occasion when even his most ardent supporters might have had an inkling that he wasn’t up to the job.
I’m talking about the time in June 2012 when he and his wife drove off in separate cars, leaving behind his eldest daughter, Nancy, in the Plough Inn at Cadsden in Buckinghamshire. As the poor girl was only eight at the time, she probably wouldn’t have been as pleased at an enforced stay in the pub as a teenager would have. Fifteen minutes later an embarrassed Mrs Cameron returned to pick her up.
Parental amnesia, tempting as it may be in theory, is rare in practice and, indeed, it is hard to imagine how it could happen but it does. The scheduled Saudi Airlines flight SV832 from Jeddah to Kuala Lumpur, had to make an unscheduled return to King Abdul Aziz airport. The reason?
One of the passengers suddenly remembered that she had left her baby in the airport lounge and was kicking up a fuss, wanting the plane to turn round. The captain radioed Air Traffic Control, received the OK to return, woman and child were reunited, and the flight took off again.
As for the rest of the passengers, not only were they an hour behind schedule, they had to put up with a bawling baby for the duration of the flight.
The legacy of Cameron lives on in many ways.
