Goodbye, Sipson.

My school and the Sacred Heart Girls’ school across the road had enormous catchment areas. Pupils came from as far apart as Maida Vale in the south and Kings Langley in the north. The net also stretched right out to Heathrow to the west, and it was from this area that Coral Giddings journeyed on the 140 bus every morning. She actually lived in a tiny former village called Sipson which was practically in Heathrow Airport. But yesterday’s confirmation that there’s to be a third runway at Heathrow means that every one of Sipson’s little triple-glazed houses will be razed to the ground. And that made me think of Coral Giddings. I’m not saying I was close to her in the Lower Sixth because her mum worked at the Nestle factory in Hayes and she brought me tons of hooky chocolate, but my memories of Sipson will always be sweet.