Airport: 20th Century In Pictures

Supplanting the great sea ports as the primary points of entry to Britain, the countrys airports have seen an extraordinary procession of the famous and infamous as they come and go. Poised there, always, are the press photographers whose lives are spent capturing these moments for newspapers of the day. None escape their lenses: Charlie Chaplin is seen in the 1930s swathed in flying helmet and goggles as he leaves Croydon for Paris and again in the 1950s after McCarthyism drove him from the USA. Predictably, The Beatles are captured leaving for their triumphant tour of America, but less predictably the Thunderbirds puppets pose on the steps of a plane, bound for Japan.