Spitfire Girl (17 page)

Driving home I put the car away. It was late, nearly four o’clock, but I searched for Reg’s pen, found my log-book and entered in the night-flying column: 1 hour dual and 30 minutes solo, before going to bed.

Contrasting with the slow but sure progress of training
in the R.A.F.V.R. my civilian life, despite the love of husband and daughter, freewheeled listlessly. Whether I am to be censured for being discontent, despite such gifts, I do not know; nor really, do I care. It was as frustrating for me not to fly constantly as it is for a woman yearning for a home and family to be a spinster. I knew that flying would not be enough without Reg and Jill. But, equally, Reg and Jill were not enough without flying. It is a man’s right to recognize and admit this by having his career and returning to his family in the evening and week-ends. I do not recognize that this is not also a woman’s right.

During the two weeks’ annual summer camp with the R.A.F. I had a tantalizing glimpse of what might have been. For fourteen days and fourteen nights the only thing I scrubbed was my teeth. The evenings were spent in hangar-talk in the mess and not in darning socks. And the days were spent on the aerodrome or in the skies building memories which must last a year. The other V.R. pilots, released for two weeks from their civilian duties as test or airline pilots chatted with easy familiarity about their jobs. The virtues of prototype Jet aircraft were argued. The impious merits of ground hostesses at Tokio, Montevideo and Reykjavik were discussed with reminiscent anecdotes. And the R.A.F. pilots listened without envy. For, at the end of their careers in the R.A.F., they would step into civil aviation and roam the open skies for another ten, twenty, thirty years. Next week, whilst the test pilots hovered on the sound barrier, the airline pilots set course for exotic latitudes, and R.A.F. pilots engraved the skies with vapour trails, I would be back at Taunton, washing dishes and ironing shirts.

Perhaps the reader detects a note of pique. So be it. I was qualified, had the experience and, through my husband’s gentle understanding, the domestic freedom, to roam the world in airliners. To greet dawn over the desert, sunset over the ocean and know summer when winter is at home. But wings clipped, in toy aircraft, I flitted meekly in England’s back-yard skies.

As the months drifted by I lost that cheerful anticipation of a million corners around which fun lurked. Not a chink of light showed through the curtain of understandable prejudice, that prevented me from following my natural highway. Again and again I had charged at it with a lance of optimism and bounced off, the lance bent but not irreparably. Now the lance had been straightened out so many times it was in danger of breaking off altogether.

But corners did turn up unexpectedly. One was the stage. ‘You dance very well. Why don’t you join the Opera Society?’ suggested a girlfriend who had for months stoically offered a shoulder for me to weep on. ‘I can get you an audition,’ she encouraged as I hesitated.

At her insistence and with Reg’s cautious assent I went for an audition with the Taunton Operatic Society and was given a microscopic singing and dancing part as a soubrette in
Vagabond King
then under rehearsal.

After a month of rehearsals where the mysteries of acoustics, the vagaries of spotlights and the inhibitions of the newest member of the cast were overcome, the show was on. Clad in black tights, red sequins and raw nerves I contributed my might before packed houses mercifully hidden by the glare of footlights, and did sufficiently well to secure larger parts in subsequent shows.

Inevitably the V.R. pilots at Filton heard of these post-flying activities and invaded the theatre one evening to see a great deal more of Pilot Class IV Moggridge, D.T., R.A.F.V.R., than they had had the opportunity of seeing before. I assume the whistles were a verdict of approval but I felt rather like the person who dreams that he walks the High Street without trousers. ‘It’s nothing,’ soothed Reg during the interval. ‘It’s just like wearing a swim-suit on the beach.’

Later, after ballet lessons with an epicene Russian teacher who insisted that I should give up singing because it spoiled my posture, and singing lessons with an Italian professor who insisted that I give up ballet because it spoiled my breathing, I appeared in professional pantomime. The press notices were flattering and prompted a producer to sign me up with a touring company as leading dancer and singer in a revue. But the reaalys and deaarlings of the professional theatre were too much for me. After one successful short tour and a comfortable scrap-book of provincial press notices I returned home and confined myself to the Taunton Operatic Society. Grease-paint, I decided, was no substitute for vapour trails.

The next corner was totally unexpected. After a year with the R.A.F.V.R. I was promoted to commissioned rank as Pilot Officer. Once again I collected a uniform from Moss Bros. A sleek elegant affair of worsted and patch pockets; a pleasant change after the itchy flannel of Pilot Class IV. The thin pale-blue stripe on my sleeves was almost infinitesimal but now
I
would be addressed as Ma’am though it was some weeks before I could divest myself of the habit of still being intimidated by other officers and addressing them as ‘Sir’. I regret to confess that, in fact, I was rarely addressed as Ma’am by the other ranks. They were almost as stricken as I with the comic absurdity of my transformation into a gentlewoman officer. In some endeavour to remove the anomaly I was dispatched on an officers’ course for three weeks shortly after I was Gazetted and learned something of the totems and taboos of military etiquette.

Being commissioned, apart from feeding my vanity, improving my appearance in uniform and giving me the delightful pleasure of signing P/O after my name, altered very little the routine of my life. In the V.R. it was rather like being promoted Minister without Portfolio. I wore the trappings of authority but had no one over whom it could be exercised. Not that I cared to. I am not the type who gives orders with equanimity.

We were putting up the 1952 Christmas decorations. Reg
exuded an air of seasonal goodwill.

‘Reg.’

‘Uh-huh,’ answered Reg absently from the top of the ladder.

‘What do you think about going through the Sound Barrier?’

The ladder shook dangerously as he looked down at me.

‘Apropos what?’ he asked, warily.

‘It hasn’t been done by a woman yet.’

‘So?’

‘Well. It would be nice if an Englishwoman were the first woman...’

‘Admirable patriotism. You mean it would be nice for you if you were the first.’

‘The publicity might help me to get a job,’ I urged, passing him the end of a streamer.

‘You haven’t flown Jets,’ he countered. I waited until he had a drawing-pin in his mouth before confessing that I had written to V.P. Headquarters for permission to fly Jet aircraft at an R.A.F. station.

‘Do you think you can do it?’ he asked.

‘Of course. Just a question of getting hold of the right aircraft.’

‘Have you told the air force?’

‘Not yet. I want to get some more Jet time in first.’

He sat on top of the ladder, looking at his watch. I got the tears ready.

‘It’s Christmas,’ he observed irrelevantly. ‘All right. Go ahead; but take it easy.’

After a few weeks of training with the R.A.F. on an ‘old boy’ basis I did a few hours solo flying on a Meteor Jet aircraft. What followed is best told by the following letters selected from a vast file of correspondence dealing with that period:

T
o: Officer Commanding,

R.A.F., Pucklechurch.          13th March, 1953

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your kindness in obtaining permission for me to fly in a Meteor at Merryfield.

I would be grateful if you would help me again by applying to the Air Ministry for permission and facilities making it possible for me to achieve a faster-than-sound women’s international speed record before this is achieved by Madame Auriol of France who is backed by the French Government or Miss Jacqueline Cochrane of America.

Yours etc.

Royal Air Force,

Pucklechurch.          8th April, 1953

Dear P/O Moggridge,

With reference to your letter dated 28th March, with the details concerning your recent interview at the Air Ministry, the Air Officer Commanding is pleased to know that your request to realize your ambition to fly faster than sound received sympathetic consideration, but notes that the Air Council are unable to help you at the present.

Under the circumstances, it is considered that no useful purpose could be served by your continuing to fly as a passenger in two-seater Jet aircraft. The question of your qualifying for ‘Wings’ and an ‘Instrument Ticket’ will be dealt with as a separate issue in due course.

Yours etc.

The Secretary of State for Air,

Air Ministry,

Whitehall.          23rd April, 1953

Dear Mrs Moggridge,

The Secretary of State for Air wishes me to thank you for your letter of the 16th April in which you request that you should be given assistance to enable you to fly faster than sound.

He admires greatly the spirit which has prompted you to make this suggestion, which is typical of the Women’s Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.

He wishes me, however, to point out that whilst you have a great deal of general flying experience, before you could apply this experience to Jet aircraft, a great deal of further flying training would be necessary.
*

Furthermore, as you are no doubt aware, aircraft capable of flying faster than sound are not yet in general use in the R.A.F. in this country, and aircraft belonging to civil firms do not normally come under the control of the Secretary of State for Air.

He very much regrets therefore that for this reason, among others, it is not possible for him to arrange for you to undertake this enterprise. He trusts that you will still enjoy the flying facilities which the Women’s Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve performs, and he is sure that you and other pilots of the W.R.A.F.V.R. will continue to be a source of inspiration to the young women of this country.

Yours etc.

Jill Moggridge,

‘La Retraite’ Boarding School,

Burnham-on-Sea.          10th May, 1953

Dear Mummy,

Hurry up and go threw
[sic]
the sound barrier. My friends keep asking me why you have not done it yet. We have prayers for you every day and you still have not done it yet.

Love etc.

Henry Tony Skace,

Veterans Administration,

252-7th Avenue,

New York City.          12th May, 1953

Dear Aviatrix,

Hi! Have just read in a mag that you are going through the Sound Barrier. I sketch as a hobby. Will you please sign and return enclosed drawing of ‘Lovely (sic) and Talented you.’ You are a terrific gal. Sure hope you accomplish all your ambitions!

I am an ex G.I., Bomb Disposal, U.S. Army, Patton’s Third. Now with U.S. Govt.

Hoping you favour me,

Your admirer etc.

Air Ministry,

London, W.C.2.          May, 1953

Madam,

I am commanded by the Air Council to reply to the letter you wrote to His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh on the 25th April, regarding your desire to be given facilities to fly an aeroplane at faster than the speed of sound. I am to say that the Council appreciate highly the spirit that prompts you to make this request, and to express regret that, for the reasons recently explained by the Secretary of State for Air, it is not possible to grant you the facilities.

Yours etc.

O
n the 28th May, 1953, Miss Jacqueline Cochrane of the
U.S.A., whom I briefly met when she was attached to the Air Transport Auxiliary for a few months during the war, was the first woman to exceed the speed of sound. She achieved this and other speed records in a British (Canadian) built Sabre Jet aircraft. Madame Auriol, of France, has since also achieved speeds faster than sound but, to date, this has not yet been accomplished by a British woman.

*
Rubbish (J.M.).

After the melancholy affair of the Sound Barrier – I
had a shrewd suspicion of what the Air Ministry thought of ‘that Moggridge woman’ – I thought it more prudent to lie low for a few months and be content with ‘being a source of inspiration to the young women of this country’ before pressing the Air Ministry for a decision on whether I should be permitted to qualify for Royal Air Force Wings, another controversial issue. Consequently I was astonished when almost immediately I received a disarming invitation to join an advanced flying course with the R.A.F. in order to qualify. Whether it was a case of the right hand not knowing the left or a commendable touch of sympathy I do not know. I was too conscious of the rare privilege to care about its inspiration.

Rather anxiously – I had received a lot of Press publicity over the Sound Barrier affair, including a picture of me in ballet tights in a simpering pose that hardly suggested I was Wings material – I reported to R.A.F. Training Command for a month’s preparatory refresher on advanced instrument flying and aerobatics before joining up with the last two weeks of a Wings course being held at No. 9 Flying Training School, Wellesbourne Mountford. My anxiety was needless, for apart from one confirmed misogynist, the staff and fellow students were, there is no other adjective for it, charming.

For two weeks, with the aid of enviably complexioned and gallant teenage air force cadets, I attempted to plug the gaps in my knowledge of military aviation in preparation for the formidable Wings examination. With these, I was warned, I would receive no mercy. Only one man, or woman, has ever worn R.A.F. Wings who has not qualified for them: Sir Winston Churchill. An exception that adds to their lustre.