Love the sound of your Mum - did she try skid-panning the double decker ? !! I find the thought of beautiful Concorde not flying and soaring up into the blue yonder - to be so sad; just grounded and silent in a museum I find quite depressing - she’s too beautiful to be ground bound. Didn’t know about Le Bourget - must add that to my growing bucket list - thank you for the info.
Oh how I envy those who flew Concorde - your lucky step-father and mother. And love the idea of a 96 page passport - jeepers I’m jealous. What an interesting career he must have had - and you must have had some ‘strange’ presents brought back from his foreign travels. Did you have a globe of the world (as I did) to follow his travels ?
Indeed!
The red crushed velvet and silver waistcoat from Pakistan that later caught the eye of Country Joe McDonald and the Fish when they were trying to find their gig in Manchester, and gave us a lift there in their limo.
The Australian postcard that was a rectangle of kangaroo skin with a stamp and a biro’d message on the back - hope they don’t still sell those! And all those postcards from Apartheid era South Africa (where he wasn’t supposed to be doing business)
But perhaps best of all was the hardwood chest of 50 double corona filipino cigars that he’d been given in Manilla (he only smoked Players Medium non filter!), and which my mother and I worked through over quite some time
A good friend of ours used to fly concorde all the time being a stewardess. Invited to some very swanky parties too from the rich and famous
Actually, you can’t sit in one because the seats are cordoned off. You can walk down the cramped, narrow aisle, though. They have 2. But bring latex gloves or don’t touch anything because there’s a lot of oil leakage all around.
The museum (Air & Space) is well worth visiting- not just for that. And free on the first Sunday of the month.
What a shame, my mum got to sit in the front row at Duxford. Said it felt cramped. But that was a long time ago and nit sure the plane is still there
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We visited Duxford a lifetime ago and, I agree, that particular Concorde felt very cramped and uncomfortable but I believe that one was not the “public” model.
Some years after that, I met an old school friend who used Concorde regularly for business meetings abroad and she reckoned it was fantastic. Got her where she needed to be swiftly and comfortably and her company paid the costs. 
Concord cut the flying time between London or Paris and New York to 4 hours. Super fast tracked through immigration and luggage. When time is money, that was the ticket. Pokey cabin but comfy leather seats with chilled champagne or vodka and caviar served by elegant staff and a window view of the earth’s curvature.