Dear Heathrow Terminal 5 Customer Service...

I love Heathrow Terminal 5.  I do.  The open spaces, the tranquil atmosphere (pre-check in, anyway), the cleanliness, the still-bright-as-a-new-penny surfaces everywhere.  Travelling through it should be a pleasure, really it should.

Funnily enough however, (although I can tell you, I'm not laughing that much), it isn't.  Not for the Potski family, anyway.  Long term readers of this site may be aware that both my sons are highly allergic to nuts.  We're fortunate that Boys #1 and #2 don't have atmospheric allergies - which would preclude air travel - but they can't eat or touch nuts and if they do, we have to resort firstly to anti-histamine and secondly, if that doesn't work and their airways start to close up, to epi-pens to give them a shot of adrenaline.  Thankfully, because the Piriton (our anti-histamine of choice) works, I've never had to use the latter, but I carry one with me always, just in case.  I know it's just a matter of time before we need to use it on one or other of my children - we've been lucky so far, but that can't last for ever.

For now, though, I am never - NEVER - without either form of medication in my handbag.  Well - not unless I've just come through Security at Heathrow Terminal 5, anyway.

I think I may have form with the bods who work at Security in this terminal.  I certainly never seem to have the same problem at any other terminal or airport.  At Heathrow T5, however,  I have had the bottle of Piriton in my handbag confiscated no less than 3 times so far.  It's almost as if they're looking out for me as I queue up with my children, juggling bags, coats, rucksacks and sweatshirts whilst trying to maintain some semblance of dignity as I hunt through my pockets for the paper clip I'm currently using to undo the zip on my boots.  (The pull came off.  What can I say?  They're my favourite boots, and no-one notices as long as I remember to take the paper clip out once I've done them up...)

However, it seems as if every time we reach the other side of the x-ray machine, there is one of our trays on the other side of the glass, just out of reach.  So near and yet so far.  My heart sinks - and the Boys look up at me worriedly; they know what's coming next as the person on duty sighs heavily and extracts the battered but still clear plastic bag from the tray, tutting at me disappointedly.  'It's antihistamine for my children' I explain.  'They're highly allergic to nuts.  I've tried to buy it in bottles of 100ml or less, but they don't sell it in that format.'  'I'm sorry madam.  I can't let it through.  The bottle size is 150ml, see?  Those are the rules...'

And no matter how much I point out that it is accompanied by a prescribed epi-pen so is clearly part of an approved medical procedure, and that it's almost half empty with what is obviously less than 100ml of liquid even in the bottle, they won't be moved.  'Don't worry madam' they say placatingly.  'There's a Boots just over there.  You can replace it straight away.'

Which is, I think you would agree, hardly the point when a) you have a perfectly good partly-used bottle right in front of you,  b) aren't we supposed to be taking care of our resources and c) you're catching a flight with two children so the chances you have an extra few minutes to spare to pop into Boots are quite slim...

So I decided to try and box clever this time.  I went into a pharmacy and bought a 100ml medicine bottle into which I decanted my half bottle of Piriton before going anywhere near the airport.  Then, this morning the Boys and I travelled to Heathrow T5 to head back to Moscow.

This is what happened after we came through the metal detector.

Boy #2:  "Mum - is that our tray over there?  On the belt we can't reach?"

My heart sank.  "Yes, it is.  OK, let's get everything together - Boy #1, can you hold my bag whilst I fish out the paper clip to do my boot up - and go and wait at the end."

We gathered our kit and caboodle and stood at the end of the of the Conveyor Belt of Shame.  I fixed my friendly but firm face on - because I KNEW, for god's sake, that the bottle of Piriton was less than 100ml, the chemist in the pharmacy had told me that - and waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Finally, just as the technician in charge of the x-ray machine was getting up to come and talk to us, a cross-looking female officer stomped over.

Her:  "Is this your tray, madam?"

Me:  "Yes, it is.  Is the piriton the problem?  Because if it is -"

Her:  "No.  Do you have any electronics in this rucksack?  Because you're really supposed to take them out, you know."

Me:  "I don't think so, no.  Oh wait - it could be my son's DS - would that do it?"

Her, sighing heavily:  "Yes.  May I open the bag?"  She proceeded to unzip the front pocket.

Me:  "Sorry about that.  I thought it was just computers and suchlike.  It's not in the front pocket, by the way, it's -"

Her: "IF you don't mind madam, I will just do my job."

Me:  "Of course.... I was just trying to be helpful and -"

Her:  "We DO have procedure to follow, you know."

Me (at this stage thinking it might be wise to stay quiet about the other DS and my Kindle, both of which had gone through undetected and lay in bags that had escaped the slash and burn approach now being applied to Boy #2's rucksack):  "OK."  After a few moments of prodding around, and checking the little cloth on the stick in her special detector thingy (this is a technical term) she looked at me.

Her:  "Alright."

Me:  "So, is it OK for us to go?"

Her:  "I just need to check this bottle with my supervisor."

Me:  "I thought it was the DS that was the problem?"

Her:  "No, now I need to check to the bottle.  I don't hold out much hope, though."

Me:  "But the bottle size is 100ml."

Her:  "Doesn't say that, though, does it?"

Me:  "That's because I bought an empty bottle from the pharmacy.  It doesn't have a label on it because it had nothing in it when I bought it at Boots in Smalltown, Somerset."

Her:  "It's made of glass.  Boots don't sell un-labelled glass bottles."

Me:  "Actually, they do - when you can't find 100ml bottles anywhere else and they're trying to be helpful..."

She looked at me, eyebrows raised.  "Well, I'll check with the supervisor.  But I don't think he'll say yes."

Two minutes later she returned.  "Sorry madam.  I can't let you take it."

Our departure time was getting closer by now; I should have just left it but as you can imagine, I found it hard to walk away.  "Seriously?  Because this is vital for my sons' well-being and I really thought I'd done it all right this time.  I mean, this will be the fourth time I've had a bottle of Piriton confiscated at Terminal 5."

There is only way to describe the smile she gave me at that point; nasty.  "Well then, next time I suggest you buy a bottle that is clearly labelled '100ml'.  I would think you would have learned that by now.  Don't worry though - you can pick up a new bottle in the Boots just over there..."

The kids are alright

It has to be said that Russians are not universally perceived as having a caring attitude.  A friend told me recently that when her father slipped on the ice and broke his hip here a few years back, the majority of passers-by simply stepped over him, assuming he was drunk.  Certainly, the Muscovite air of purpose, of ‘get out of my way’, can be overwhelming when you arrive here for the first time and are looking around you with the panicked eyes of a deer-in-headlights.

The customs officials who greet you at the border are cold, the waiters are brusque and rude, the shop assistants clearly have better things to do than attend to your needs, and anyone in an official uniform is downright intimidating if not scary.

And yet...

Arrive in Moscow with young children in tow, and the situation is completely different.  Strangers will go out of their way to offer them a seat on the crowded metro or to show your family the way to the correct office to get your immigration forms stamped.  Elderly museum attendants will – once they have overcome their innate suspicion of children not clad in snow-pants in Septbember – smile benignly and ferret around for cards giving you a translation of the legends on the wall.  And the dreaded queue systems... well.

Not long after we moved over here, my sons (then 4 and 6) and I found ourselves in the old Sheremetyevo terminal, trying to check in for a flight.  It was madness.  There were no staff on the 3 desks assigned to our flight, the crush was getting tighter and tighter, and the minutes were ticking away until the plane was due to leave.  Then, when only 2 check-in staff arrived for the 3 desks, whatever space there had been between aspiring passengers disappeared as the mass of people surged towards the open desks.  It was not a comfortable situation. 

Suddenly, almost out of thin air, we found ourselves surrounded by an honour guard of babushkas.  They pushed and fought their way to the front of the business class queue, having formed a sort of cordon around the boys and myself, and carried us along with them.  Any foreign business-class traveller green enough not to know the score and to question their right to do this was firmly put in their place as it was pointed out that I had young children with me and that they should be ashamed of themselves for not stepping out of the way without being asked.  Needless to say, I was not travelling on a business class ticket.  Needless to say, when faced with my security detail of formidable babushkas, the woman on the check-in desk passed the three of us through without comment...

I have to admit that over the last couple of years, I’ve become accustomed to this preferential treatment when I have the boys with me.  Indeed, I now walk straight to the front of boarding queues in airports, and shamelessly seek out the diplomatic channels with the shortest lines at immigration (although the introduction of the ‘pen’ system at Domodedovo will probably make that unnecessary from now on, thank heavens).  So when recently arriving at Heathrow and dealing with a small boy desperate for the bathroom, with not a working loo in sight and immigration lines of record length I had no hesitation in walking to the woman at the entrance to the empty Fast Track lane and asking if I and my sons could use it to gain quicker access to the toilets which I knew were just on the other side.

To say that her face was a mask of horrified surprise at my request was an understatement.  Go through the Fast Track without the official right to use it?  Just because my little boy needed the bathroom?  The answer was an unequivocal no.  Instead we were sent to the back of beyond – my younger son’s legs crossed as he walked – to find a toilet that was open.  And I was left asking myself where on earth I had thought I was flying into...

It certainly wasn’t Russia.

This post was first published on my other blog 'Diaries of a Moscow Mum' over at The Moscow Times Online