MY mother swore she would NEVER fly with me again after my antics at Heathrow ten years ago.

My fear of flying overwhelmed me to the point of running the wrong way down the tunnel to avoid boarding the jet. My mother was mortified.

To me tears and tantrums go hand in hand with take-off and turbulence. And fear turns me into a five-year-old in an adult’s body. I just can’t control it.

That was before I completed Virgin’s Flying without Fear course.

My brother, who flies a lot, was not helpful.

“Why are you bothering? You aren't exactly a seasoned traveller. I mean the furthest you venture on a regular basis is Castlepoint,” he scoffed, laughing at his own joke.

“That’s exactly why I’m doing it. Do you know how long it takes to get to Cuba by boat? And the closest I’ve been to abroad lately is Lidl.”

So, on Sunday, along with 90 other fearful flyers, including a couple of doctors, a vet and an 80-year-old who had never flown, I attended the ten-hour course.

For me my fear is death, and it’s made worse by my control freakery. I don't know how planes work and I can’t fly one. If something fails in a plane, and I don’t mean being unable to open the wine bottle, my prospects of surviving are tiny and if something happened mid-air I would have a 30,000ft fall to mull over my imminent demise.

The course was amazing. Adele – our glamorous, blonde-haired pilot – explained how planes work, referring to the metal monstrosity as “beautiful”, the engines as “fantastic” and telling us even the spoilers were special.

And she answered all the what ifs that were thrown at her; you know the sort of thing, what if the plane gets caught in a storm, what if all the engines fail, what if we enter a meteor shower...

I learned that air pockets don’t exist, turbulence can be likened to waves on the sea and cause no risk to planes or passengers and if all the engines failed the plane can glide for 120 minutes and land on the engines if the landing gear fails to open.

We then met our psychologist, who fast-tracked us from fear to freedom and by the end of it we had been brainwashed enough to embark on a 30-minute flight.

It was amazing. I didn’t scream, I didn’t panic and I looked out of the window the whole time.

The course convinced me that the big, wide world is worth exploring, and not just the places I can get to in my Hyundai Getz.

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