Jackie Moggridge (1922–2004)

Not a long book and I really regretted putting it down!

So, Jackie is my hero! This is Jackie Moggridge‘s autobiography spanning her early days from a young teenager in South Africa until the early 1950’s. We lost Jackie in 2004 in her mid-eighties - her ashes spread, amazingly, from a refurbished Spit she’d delivered in 1944!

While she didn’t call herself such, Jackie clearly was a staunch feminist in achieving what she did in an exclusively male domain.

Jackie always wanted to fly and started as a young teenager (16?) funded by her suffering mum - who also funded a motorcycle for her to get to the airstrip for her lessons. After succeeding in getting her pilot’s licence she wanted to progress to a “B” licence which meant traveling to England - mum to the rescue again!

At more or less the conclusions of attaining her licence in England WWII started. Much to mum’s chagrin, she stayed in England to “do her bit”.

The WWII part surprisingly only occupies about 30% of the book. I was disappointed that the author spent little time discussing the actual flying and what the many types of aircraft she flew were like to fly. She flew for the ATA* and mentions flying Tiger Moths, Austers, Hurricanes, “lyrical” Spitfires, the brutish and dangerous Typhoons, Tempests, Mosquitos, “heavies” including the “thunderous” Lancasters (typo in the book - typed as Lanes!), Beaufighters, B25 Mitchell, Albacore, and the Walrus - which she disliked as being heavy and tiring - ands miscellaneous transports including Oxfords and Ansons. She mentions the joy of the Spit, the purposeful lines of the Tempest, and the joy of beating up airfields in the Mossie. Amazingly I don’t thing she was ever trained on the particular aircraft!

After WWII, and I won’t spoil this, she accepts a risky 6 week contract which ends up as about 6 months away from her husband and daughter and is the most amazing adventure in the most remote places.

Superb!

*Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) was a British civilian organization set up during the Second World War and headquartered at White Waltham Airfield that ferried new, repaired and damaged military aircraft between factories, assembly plants, transatlantic delivery points, Maintenance Units (MUs), scrap yards, and active service squadrons and airfields, but not to naval aircraft carriers. - she ferried more planes than anyone else - gender ignored. Not exclusively women pilots but many. They flew unarmed aircraft during daylight hours.… (mais)