How pilot Jean secured a seat in aviation history

I WAS fascinated by your feature on Jean Batten and her record solo flight from England to Australia (“The lonely life of the ‘ Garbo of the skies’”, March 7).

In 1936 she set another world record with a solo flight from England to New Zealand in a Percival Gull built at the airport in my hometown of Gravesend. My grandfather, an experienced sheet metalworker, was commissioned to create a bespoke pilot’s seat complete with commode, saving Jean having to make comfort stops.