Suffolk man Ben Lord from near Bury St Edmunds talks of his enduring connection with ‘iconic’ Concorde
Ben Lord’s ‘love affair’ with Concorde took off 25 years ago when he was a child and, despite the retirement of the aircraft, his passion has not wavered.
Aged about 12, he was on a trip to Legoland in Windsor with his family when, tired of queuing, it was suggested he look at the flags over Windsor Castle.
“I was there having a look and there was this – I can still vividly recall it – this almighty roar in the sky,” said Ben, of Ixworth, near Bury St Edmunds. “I remember looking up and thinking ‘the world is going to come to an end it’s so loud’.
“And I looked up and there was this aircraft like not any other with flames [afterburners] shooting out of the back of it and I went back to ask my mum and my nan and they said ‘that’s Concorde’.”
From that moment on Ben, now 37, was ‘hooked’ and wanted to learn as much as he could about the iconic aircraft. And, inevitably, he made it his mission to fly aboard one.
Over the past 20 years he has been involved in the Concorde community, including a recent visit to New York for the official occasion marking the completion of the $1 million-restoration programme of British Airways’ (BA’s) Concorde ‘Alpha Delta’ G-BOAD.
Concorde was the first supersonic passenger-carrying commercial plane and had a maximum cruising speed of 1,354 miles per hour – more than twice the speed of sound.
Built jointly by aircraft manufacturers in Great Britain and France, it made its first flight on March 2, 1969.
Ben later learned the plane he saw at Windsor was from BA’s fleet of seven and was the daily BA001 morning flight from London bound for New York – a journey Concorde could make in about three hours, arriving before you left London in local time terms.
Desperate to fly on Concorde, Ben suggested people club together for his 18th birthday to pay for a flight, but one year and two days before his pivotal birthday his ‘dream was smashed’.
On April 10, 2003, BA and Air France announced the retirement of Concorde, with Air France ending its commercial flights on May 31 that year and BA five months later, on October 24.
“On that last day, just before my 17th birthday, my mum took me to Heathrow,” he recalled. “I wasn’t very well at all. I had some kind of lurgy, but I wasn’t missing it for the world.
“I remember the sight of three Concordes in the sky on approach to Heathrow. I came away from that feeling bereft beyond words.
“It was a national tragedy. It was one of the greatest achievements this country can lay claim to since World War Two.”
But that was far from the end of Ben’s fascination with Concorde.
Along came the dawn of the internet in households and in late 2003, thirsty for information on the aircraft, he came across an organisation called the Save Concorde Group that was campaigning for Concorde to return to flight in a heritage and ceremonial capacity.
He said he just had to be part of this – and thought ‘this is how I’m going to get my flight’.
After starting off with writing letters for the organisation, he became part of a petition movement – before the days of social media – which saw him, as part of a delegation, deliver a petition of 25,000 signatures to then Prime Minister Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street.
He also got involved in PR and communications for the Save Concorde Group and in 2009 he became chairman, a position he has now held for 15 years.
Over this time, has has either met or had communication with Sir Richard Branson (co-founder of the Virgin Group), Sir Rod Eddington (former BA CEO), Fred Finn (the world’s most travelled man, who flew 718 flights on Concorde), Mike Bannister (chief Concorde pilot) and numerous other people who were somehow connected to Concorde in one way or another.
With the current likelihood of Concorde ever flying again being ‘near zero’, Ben said the group’s ‘raison d'etre’ was now focused on preserving all Concordes globally ‘for future generations to understand what we once had’.
While Ben has been unable to fulfil his childhood dream of flying on Concorde, he has now managed to see all 18 surviving Concordes from both BA and Air France, following a visit to Barbados in January this year.
He was invited by the CEO of Grantley Adams International Airport, in Barbados, to visit their Concorde (BA’s G-BOAE) to consult with them on the relaunch of Concorde as a tourist attraction in the Caribbean.
“I vowed after not being able to have a flight on one, I would see them all,” said Ben. “I could argue I saved the best until last given the location and also the superb condition it’s in.”
And in spring this year Ben ‘chased’ BA’s Concorde G-BOAD (Alpha Delta) through the waterways of New York City as it was transported back to the Intrepid Museum along the Hudson River following a six-month restoration project at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
A keen amateur photographer, he was able to photograph the aircraft while on foot over two days taking in landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty and the new World Trade Center.
“She had flown at speed over the city, her stateside home, for nearly 28 years and there she was taking her slowest journey up the Hudson,” he said.
Ben then returned to New York this month after being invited to attend the VIP formal ribbon-cutting ceremony to welcome Alpha Delta back to the Intrepid, which hosts exhibits on sea, air and space exploration.
He was joined on that trip, as in Barbados, by Fred Finn, with whom he has worked ‘extensively’.
He said he was supporting Fred’s upcoming book ‘Sonic Boom’ depicting 65 years in travel culminating in him being the Guinness World Record Holder for the world’s most travelled man since 1983, travelling more than 15 million miles.
Ben, chairman of Ixworth Parish Council, is also working on his own book showcasing aspects of the aircraft that, as yet, have not been printed as well as his own journey in being a part of this ‘amazing’ aircraft.
Most of the work has taken place from his home office in Ixworth.
Ben, who runs two Thetford-based businesses named after Concorde, Speedbird Promotions and Speedbird Supplies, said he felt it was almost a duty to do what he does so future generations could have the same ‘awestruck wonder’ he did when he was a child.
He added: “It’s iconic as an aircraft and iconic in terms of our national heritage and identity. This was an aircraft that was developed in the 1960s and was the product of some of the most genius, far-sighted engineers.
“We took a massive step back on October 24, 2003 and we have not been able to emulate that two decades on.”
His own journey with Concorde is set to stretch long into the future.
Why was Concorde retired?
Concorde’s retirement is said to be due to a number of factors.
According to Britannica, it was extremely expensive to operate and fare pricing was prohibitively high for many consumers.
It said some believed Air France Concorde’s crash on July 25, 2000, which killed all 109 people on board shortly after takeoff from Paris, accelerated the retirement of Concorde in 2003.
However Ben Lord said ‘it had nothing to do with the crash’, but was for reasons to do with Air France and Airbus.
He claimed British Airways always made money from Concorde (in excess of £500 million net profit) while for Air France it was not profitable and it nearly lost another Concorde in 2003 when there was an engine surge.
