MissChateline I had a similar experience. My father was in the army and I was at university, so I did all my travelling on my own and by public transport. Train from Newcastle to London, then, when we lived in Belgium, tube to Victoria for journeys from Dover, usually to Ostende and then train to Brussels where my parents would meet me. When we moved to Germany it was tube to Liverpool Street, overnight on the Harwich-Hook of Holland ferry, where overnight accommodation was sold per berth in large cabins that slept about 8 and train to Dusseldorf.
Before that my parents had been in Malaya and my sister and I were taken to London Airport by relations and once booked in and through the departure lounge doors we were on our own for the rest of the journey, nominally in charge of a stewardess, but as we were in our teens left to our own devices because there were so many younger children to look after.
Once the plane broke down at Teheran and we had to stay overnight in a hotel. As I got into the transfer vehicle, I was goosed by one of the porters, something I had never experienced before. I obviously looked surprised, because a male member of the air crew sitting behind me noticed it and lent forward and whispered in my ear. 'If anyone does that to you again knee him in the b*lls'.