The current anxiety about travel reminds me of the 1970s

While the prospect of a visit to France, Spain or even Greece was thrilling, any foreign holiday was steeped in stress, writes Simon Calder

Britons will have to wait for flights to destinations such as Greece (Getty)

Fraught and uncertain: that summed up pioneering European travel in the 1970s.

While the prospect of a visit to France, Spain or even Greece was thrilling beyond measure for people from “the sick man of Europe”, any foreign holiday was steeped in stress.

Would the UK government allow us to travel? With a £50 limit on spending overseas, successive administrations did their best to keep us holidaying at home.