Plain sailing for flying ace
QUESTION How did Amy Johnson return to England after her historic solo flight to Australia?
Though Amy Johnson considered flying back, this was not possible. Not only was she worn out by the strain of the flight, but she had crashed her plane in Australia. She made the journey home by boat and commercial flights.
hull-born Amy Johnson’s 19 ½ day flight from Croydon Aerodrome to Darwin in May 1930 is an epic story of early aviation. Though she failed to break Bert hinkler’s record time of 15 ½ days, she was the first woman to fly solo to Australia.
her achievement was even more impressive given that her longest previous flight had been from London to hull. She had little flying experience in the aircraft she used for the 11,000-mile venture — an open-topped gipsy Moth, nicknamed Jason I, and capable of only 80 mph.
By the time Amy landed at Darwin, she had become a global celebrity. She immediately embarked on a month-long flying tour of Australia during which she crashed at Brisbane aerodrome. Luckily, she escaped with only minor injuries.
Amy was ferried by various pilots for the rest of her tour, where she was greeted by huge crowds in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Adelaide.
on part of the journey, she was flown by Scottish aviator Jim Mollison, who proposed just eight hours after they met. They married in 1932.
her journey back to Britain began on July 17, 1930, when she embarked from Fremantle Port, Perth, on P&o liner SS Naldera bound for Port Said, Egypt.
She had been presented with a pair of boxing gloves by the people of Perth, which she put to good use on board, sparring with Johnny Peters, a bantamweight from South London, who had defeated Aussie champ Billy McAllister.
Amy disembarked in Egypt to make the rest of the trip by air. She went by flying boat from Alexandria to Athens where she boarded an Imperial Airways flight.
En route she visited Vienna, Nuremberg and Cologne where she was feted. up to 200,000 people greeted her when she landed at Croydon on August 4.
Amy was awarded a CBE, £10,000 by the Daily Mail and given a De havilland Dh.80A Puss Moth g-AAZV by geoffrey De havilland, which she named Jason II.
She later undertook record-breaking flights to Japan and South Africa.
During World War II, she was a pilot for the Air Transport Auxiliary, delivering aircraft for the RAF.
on January 5, 1941, she took off from Blackpool in an Airspeed oxford, which
was to be delivered to Kidlington, oxfordshire. She lost her way in poor weather and parachuted into the Thames, 70 miles off course. her body was never found.
Jason I was restored and returned to England by the Daily Mail. It is on display in the Science Museum in London.
Karen Armstrong, Southampton.
QUESTION Is it actually possible to ‘hit the ground running’?
THE earliest use of this phrase, as cited in the oxford English Dictionary, comes from the 1895 story King of The Liars, author unknown, published in several u.S. newspapers.
The narrator outruns an assailant with a six-gun: ‘I turned to run and figured to a dot when he shot. As he cracked loose, I jumped way up in the air and did a split, just like what these show gals does, only mine wasn’t on the ground by six foot.
‘The bullet went under me. I knew he had five more cartridges, so I hit the ground running and squatted low down when his gun barked a second time.’ By the 20th century, the literal use of this phrase was commonplace, describing hobos jumping off trains and troops dropped by parachute.
Its figurative use was known from at least 1931 when a law was introduced facilitating quickie divorce in Reno, Nevada. An editorial column reported: ‘one woman was in such a rush to get her decree that she hit the ground running in the morning . . . simply going to court in her pyjamas.’
Mike Finch, Wolverhampton, W. Mids. THIS phrase recalls double- decker buses, such as the early Routemasters, with an open platform with a pole, but no doors. People would run for the bus as it was pulling away from the stop and grab the pole while jumping on.
Instead of waiting until the bus had stopped, foolhardy passengers would jump off when it was slowing down. To avoid falling flat on their face, they would need to jump in the direction the bus was travelling and hit the ground running.
It has since become a meaningless phrase used by politicians trying to impress voters.
Phil Alexander, Farnborough, Hants.
QUESTION Has a musician ever been denied access to their own concert?
FURTHER to the travails of Bob Dylan and george Michael, Motown star Jimmy Ruffin had been booked to perform at Shades Discotheque in Northampton in 1971.
he had been riding high with Top Ten hits in the UK charts, including What Becomes of The Brokenhearted and Farewell Is A Lonely Sound.
The band were already on stage, but Jimmy was still getting changed in his hotel room near the venue.
Wearing a green jumpsuit covered with hundreds of sequins, he ran up the long passageway into the ballroom. one of the bouncers put a big hand on his chest to stop him and said: ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
The singer replied: ‘hey, man, I’m Jimmy Ruffin.’
The bouncer said: ‘I don’t care who you are, you’re paying like everyone else.’ he had to be rescued by the management.
Patrick Grady, Northampton.