Air hostess Angela and Sean Connery

A signed menu card with the immortal words "Miss Austin (as she then was), I love you, Sean Connery."

"It was a special charter flight," recalls Angela who lives in Felpham now. "It was a production unit for a film and I had taken them down to East Africa. They were making a Tarzan film.

"About a month later, I was scheduled to go down and bring this production unit back. There were also ten or 11 young actors. I didn't recognise any of their names or any of their faces. It was 1958.

"Before we arrived in London, one of them hand me a folded menu card and said 'I have put a special message in it'. I said thank you and said that the run way as practically in sight and that he should go back to his seat."

Angela put the menu away and didn't think about it again until she rediscovered it the next day '“ and found the message.

Proof indeed that hers was a glamorous job in a more glamorous era '“ one she evokes in her new book Before There Were Trolley Dollies.

As she says, the 1950s and 1960s were often considered 'the golden age of passenger flying', and to be an air hostess was the ambition of most young women at that time.

Her book brings together her tales about her life in the skies, working in World War II bombers that had been converted for passenger use.

Flying in daylight only, the journey from London to Nairobi or Accra took three days, with passengers and crew staying in hotels each night along the way.

Angela's passengers included Prime Ministers, world athletes and people travelling on the new low-cost package holidays. And the vast majority of them were great.

"I never saw the air rage that you hear about these days. We had the odd passenger who was unpleasant, but by and large it was just thoroughly nice. We got thoroughly tired and we were sometimes bored as you would be in any job, but by and large it was an enormous pleasure.

"It was also extremely hard work. We worked very long hours. There were very strict regulations about how many hours pilots could put in. But there were no regulations about how long cabin crew could work.

"I flew once from London to Karachi. The flight was then going on to Hong Kong. I arrived in Karachi and found out that the senior hostess on the crew that was coming on was sick, so I had to go straight on through. I had done 17 or 18 hours already. And then it was probably another 17 after that."

But it was a price worth paying for the opportunities it brought her: "I was working as a secretary in London and I really really wanted to travel. In those days you just looked in awe at people who travelled the world!"

Before There Were Trolley Dollies by Angela Waller is published in paperback by Indepenpress Publishers Ltd; 25 Eastern Place, Brighton, East Sussex BN2 1GJ;

www.penpress.co.uk; ISBN 978-1-906710-96-5; 7.99.

Angela will be signing copies at Waterstones in Chichester, on Saturday July 25 from 11am to 1pm and at Waterstones in County Mall, Crawley on Saturday July 11 from 11am to 1pm.