Flights regularly wake up Jeffray Thomas at 0430

Mr Thomas was hoping that a "lovely" European ruling banning night flights would give him a break from the rumblings of landing aircraft, at least between 11pm and 6am.

But he is now resigned to being woken up at 0430 every morning, after the UK government successfully appealed against the ban.

"During the day the planes go over at about one a minute on one runway until about 3pm. Then at about 3pm they change over and go to the other runway," he said.

"This carries on until about 11.30. Then there's a nice period of quiet until about 4.30.

"Often I get woken up with the first plane. One doesn't get used to it, I don't think you can."

Concorde cheer

Mr Thomas, 74, and his wife live in a "lovely" house in Kew, west London - about six miles from Heathrow Airport.

The problem is, their house is sited between the two final approach paths to Heathrow's two main runways - so they get huge amounts of aircraft landing noise from both.

"It has deteriorated the quality of our life a bit," he said.

"If you're having a conversation with someone you have to shout. And if you're watching television you'll miss a few words.

"Luckily we have remote controls nowadays so you can turn the sound up."

Mr Thomas admitted giving a secret cheer when he heard Concorde was coming to an end.

Runway fears

"Concorde's the worst, but some of the bigger normal aeroplanes, the big Boeings and so on, are almost as bad.

"And it's getting worse. There's more and more planes coming over."

But although he has got used to ever-increasing air noise over the 25 years he has lived in Kew, what Mr Thomas most dreads is the government giving the go-ahead to proposals to build a third runway at Heathrow.

"There will be more planes of all sorts, but the new runway will be shorter and so it will take all the small planes. And all the big planes will move to the runways that affect us," he said.

"It really will be terrible."