aircraft. As if to promote further her scatter-brained image, she set out for Africa in a Cirrus II Moth not altogether sure of her precise route and without all the necessary maps. Coming in to land at Tabora in order to enquire the way, she miscalculated her speed and the plane did a spectacular somersault. Not at all deterred, she waited while her compliant husband arranged for a pilot to fly up another Moth – at a cost of about £300. The round trip was completed early the next year, 1929, and newspaper photos show her muffled in leather and scarves with a hat jammed unceremoniously on her head, being welcomed back by two daughters at Croydon Aerodrome.
If Lady Mary Bailey presents a picture of a woman living in comfortable harmony with the many aspects of her life, Lady Heath was a different matter altogether. Born and brought up in Limerick, she went to Trinity College, Dublin where she took a science degree before moving to lecture at Aberdeen University. She began flying at twenty-two and, having taken her A Licence in 1925, she got her commercial B Licence the following year which allowed her to carry paying passengers. An energetic exhibitionist, she took up aerobatics and parachuting and on one occasion, when the engine failed, stood on the wing of the aircraft as it came in to crash land.
She was a courageous person who rushed at life full tilt. Her father was something of an eccentric, given to playing practical jokes on the local Irish constabulary. There had been no joke, however, about the murder charge brought against him when his wife was found dead in their home. Sophie, then a small girl, was put in the care of her paternal grandfather.
By the time she made her historic flight up through Africa, she was married for the second time, to a rich industrialist who was able to finance her flying. The year after the flight, however, tragedy struck. Injured in a flying accident in the US, she suffered severe brain damage which, allied to an increasing drink problem, led from one disaster to another. By the time she made her third and final marriage, to an American flier, things were going badly wrong.
She always made a point of dressing stylishly but never succeeded in totally disarming her critics – the press nicknamed her Lady Hell of a Din because of her feminist stand. She was the sort of pioneer with whom society is ill at ease – daring, outspoken and demanding – and the establishment turned with relief to the less threatening Lady Mary Bailey whose heroic image as an intrepid flier was tempered by her motherly dottiness. It was she who was made a Dame of the British Empire while the vociferous and lively Sophie went without official recognition.
In 1939, eleven years after she had delighted the world’s press with her glittering and triumphant flight to Cairo, she fell down the steps of a London bus and died of her injuries.
Flight has preoccupied and delighted the human mind for centuries. The Queen of Sheba’s lover promised to give her anything she asked for including of splendid things and riches … a vessel wherein one could traverse the air and winds which Solomon had made by the wisdom that God had given unto him.’ In 1020, Oliver, a Benedictine monk, took off from a tower in Malmesbury and was lucky to break only a leg, and in 1507, John Damian broke his ‘thee bane’ jumping off the tower of Stirling Castle. Where, you might ask, were the women while their menfolk were flinging themselves into oblivion with such misplaced optimism? Sensibly, they stayed at home by the hearth for, though without the benefit of da Vinci’s aeronautical knowledge, they nevertheless shared with him the commonsense view that inspiration and genius must be wedded to appropriate technological development before the body can break free and follow the spirit into the blue.
Until the Age of Reason, the longing to fly had been fulfilled only in myths and legends. Hermes, Icarus and Wayland the Smith soared to the skies while below, earth-bound by reality, women were left to languish, taking to the air only as discredited and troublesome witches. When eventually women did take to the skies, it was with a burst of spectacular and daring exhibitionism.
In 1783, the first balloon went up and the following year the first woman made her ascent. By 1810, Napoleon’s Chief of Air Service was the noted balloonist Madame Blanchard. Described as combining ‘a rugged character and physique with the charity and delicate exterior demanded of femininity of that period’, she was dedicated to ballooning, often staying up all night and descending only at dawn. Appointed by Louis XVIII, she planned for him one of the spectacular aerial firework displays for which she was famous. The Parisian crowd watched enraptured as she ignited a surprise rocket which sprayed a bright light across the sky, unexpectedly, however, sending the balloon with its solitary passenger on a rapidly descending course across the rooftops. The Parisian crowd roared its delight as the balloon disappeared from view. Madame Blanchard’s battered body was picked up later by passing workmen. While igniting what was to be her final firework, a rush of hydrogen had escaped from the envelope and the soaring flames had set the balloon alight.
Women, if not actually born managers, must quickly learn the skills of management in order to run their homes, and many found they had great aptitude for organizing public aeronautical displays. The public itself was more than happy to enjoy the intriguing sight of a woman elegantly clothed in empire dress and bonnet leaning langorously over a soaring gondola, one hand graciously scattering rose petals upon the awed, upturned faces, the other waving the national flag.
In England an astute mother of seven built up a whole career for herself as a balloonist. The posters, devised by herself, naturally gave her top billing:
Mrs. Graham, the only Female Aeronaut, accompanied by a party of young ladies … in the balloon The Victoria and Albert, will make an ascent at Vauxhall on Thursday July 11, 1850.
Intrepid and resourceful, Mrs Graham understood well the psychology of theatre. To whip up the anticipatory excitement, she had the preparations for the flight take place in public. Barrels of acid and old iron were set to bubble near the balloon to form the gas that was piped into it For a heightened effect she used illuminating gas which she bought from the local gas works. Then the balloon, bedecked with ribbons, streamers, plumes and silks and often filled with delightful young girls chaparoned by the matronly Mrs Graham herself, would waft slowly heavenwards. A keen businesswoman, her capacity for self-advertisement was matched only by her ability to stay alive in this dangerous business. She continued performing for forty years, spanning both the rise and the decline of ballooning in Britain.
After going up in a balloon basket the next thing was to jump out of one, and the organizers at Alexandra Palace, the Londoners’ playground, soon realized that the sight of an apparently vulnerable female figure with nipped-in waist and small, buttoned boots was more likely to produce a delicious sense of danger than was a burly, male aeronaut. To that end, and certainly to her own delight, Dolly Shepherd, daughter of a detective in the London Metropolitan Police, was chosen to become part of a parachute team.
In 1903, the 17-year-old Dolly was a smart Edwardian miss, with a good steady job as a waitress at the Ally Pally – steady, that is, until offered the chance of joining Bill Cody’s parachute team. Undeterred by the circumstances of the offer – the death of another girl parachutist in Dublin – she seized the chance and was soon being billed all over the country. In her breeches, knee-length boots and brass-buttoned jerkin, Dolly was soon the darling of the Edwardian crowd, who turned up to see her hitched to a trapeze bar and carried thousands of feet into the air by a balloon from which she then freed herself to float gracefully back to earth. Paid £2 10s for each ascent – a lot of money when a portion of fish and chips cost a penny halfpenny – her reputation was hard earned for she frequently took her life in her hands. Apart from a few unrehearsed landings on rooftops, she once drifted helplessly two miles above the earth and was only released from her ethereal prison by the unexpected deflation of the balloon. She came closest to death when, making a spectacular dual ascent, her partner’s parachute broke. Eight thousand feet up, she had to swing across to her partner, and strap the other girl to her own parachute so that they could make the dangerous descent together. She escaped with her life but badly injured her back on impact.
Dolly was the last of an era for the skies were now being
