BA Teaspoons

In this occasional series I'm going to be exploring the world of my favourite teaspoons. Those either rare and valuable or those that enjoy some design quirks or attributes that makes them special. There may not be many.

First up is a British Airways spoon from the 1980s. Back in the day BA travel was almost a pleasant experience, even for the lowest grade of passenger. Proper crockery and cutlery was used (actual china and metal), food and drink was free on demand (almost), tickets were flexible and flying was strangely pleasant. There were no searches or elaborate controls or security, there was a degree of boarding chaos but it was tolerable. Smoking and drinking were encouraged as was chat and banter between passengers and staff.

So as part of the in-flight deal free alcohol abounded, as well as snacks, scones, cream, coffee and proper breakfasts. I was a fairly regular traveler on the Edinburgh - Heathrow shuttles then and I guess, most likely as a result of drinking four double whiskies on the way home, one evening I pocketed this spoon. It's a really well designed, well made spoon, a little longer than you'd expect but satisfying to use. Strangely the BA script on the spoon's handle shows "British airways", no uppercase A on airways. That's an odd design feature or error.

I do wonder if others, greedier or dafter than me pocketed much more stuff; coffee cups, glasses, more cutlery or the high quality napkins that arrived with every place setting. I guess a lot of it is out there somewhere. I know during the start of the pandemic BA auctioned off a load of cabin material as flights were running down but I imagine it was all more recent, modern material and less desirable than 80s vintage (unless from business class).