Another view on Pan Am

I flew for Pan American World Airways between 1973 and 85; my husband was a pilot, and we met on a flight from Honolulu to Tokyo in 1979. We had high hopes for this series, about a Pan Am crew flying in the early 1960s . So far, we've been disappointed: it's is riddled with inaccuracies, and the storylines are thin to the point of preposterous. The executive producer, Nancy Hult Ganis, apparently worked as a Pan Am flight attendant herself, and some effort has been made to reflect the reality of the job . We see the girls having their girdles checked, and being "weighed in". I never had to wear a girdle, but they were certainly part of the 1960s uniform. We also had our weight checked quite frequently – each girl was issued a weight range appropriate to her height — though we didn't weigh in before each flight. As in the show, we were expected to be fluent in several languages, and when we worked first class, we often had to cook meals from scratch. I remember once preparing eggs for the entire section. We'd also board the plane with a raw beef joint, and cook it to order; I would flambe mine with mustard and cognac. We never wore our gloves while serving, though; and we never wore hats during flights. I'd have liked to see a more realistic depiction of the relationship between cockpit and cabin. The pilots are far too young: the captain was always older, a father figure. Relationships between pilots and attendants were common, though, as my marriage proves. Drunk passengers gave us some hard times, too – though stabbing one in the leg with a fork, as in the show, is a little drastic. The most ridiculous storyline concerns Kate, the flight attendant spying for the CIA. It's true that we were invited to diplomatic parties – we were seen as ambassadors for the US – but I can't imagine any spying going on. I did hear about flight crew working as couriers, carrying drugs or money. There were rumours, anyway. • Pan Am is on BBC2 on Saturdays at 9.45pm