She stops at the quadruple yellow line. Rocks back and forth impatiently, eager to run. She is let go and swings right in a wide turn. Stops again, just short of the huge “19L” painted on the tarmac: holds back to gather some breath and to consider whether to press on. Inside, senior frequent travellers, dignity dictating not to be impressed, look up briefly from the little spotlight on their magazine and their hearts skip a beat. The chatter of the cool crowd trails off. So encouraged, she makes up her mind. The engines come to life, trading decibels for trust. She jumps forward, unsteadily hurls herself along the runway; a swan on dry land. She passes the point, poetically called V1 in the calm lingo of the aviators, after which nothing will stop her from flying. Not much further and gently she rolls heavenwards, and then climbs, climbs, climbs.

The world disappears behind a curtain of clouds. And with it all its heart-break and misery. For an all too short time she shelters a hundred-odd people in her womb: Slightly crammed, watered and fed, waiting with a mix of anticipation and fear for the time when they will be spit out.

People may tell you of goals to collect millions of bonus miles if you ask them why they fly. They are lying. Despite all its lack of space and glamour, aeroplanes provide a hiding space of anonymity and solace only rarely provided these days; a tiny aluminium-grey hole in space and time always there as a much-needed retreat from the world and, no less, from yourself.