Take-off for these celebrations was in the August week in which a hundred years previously Old Bird had become the first English woman to get a pilot’s licence.   And Brooklands in Weybridge, Surrey was where she had confounded her detractors and become an accredited pilot and in partnership with Blondeau run a Flying School.   It was, therefore, natural for Brooklands Museum to join with the BWPA to organise a ‘Hilda Hewlett Centenary Weekend’.    Included among the events was a twice-daily talk on Old Bird.

My reason for agreeing to speak had more to do with a fierce possessiveness about my work than any ambitions as a speaker.    However, to my amazed delight, I found that I began to enjoy myself.    True, a wee shut-eye after lunch overtook one or two elderly listeners and, true, the numbers who attended were hardly boast-worthy – there had been one nasty moment when it threatened to be an audience of two – my husband and my cousin – but a laugh here and there, and thanks afterwards was heady stuff.

On the Friday prior to this weekend I had been interviewed for Woman’s Hour for a special about a hundred years of women pilots that was to go out on the August Bank Holiday Monday, which nicely coincided with the date on which Old Bird’s licence was issued, 29^th August.   Strangely enough, I think sitting on my own in a studio in London in front of a microphone covered with a red baffle was less terrifying than if I had been face to face with the redoubtable Dame Jenni Murray in a Manchester studio, where the programme is made.

The raft of questions that the producer of the programme had asked me in advance had me re-acquainting myself with what I had written, rather as if I was revising for an exam!    I needn’t have bothered:  the questions were few and new.    I tottered out into the London sunlight not at all certain what it was that I had said.  Listening to the broadcast, I reckoned Old Bird would have been unsurprised by the achievements of the women pilots interviewed.;  she would have rather envied the ATA ‘girls’;  and, although she would have approved of the American aeronaut, I am not sure she would have wished to have been one.   Weightlessness she might have found a bit of a lark, but being shut up in a capsule she would have found very trying – no fresh air.

Unfortunately, the BBC TV South in their ‘Inside Out’ magazine programme did not do Mrs Hewlett too proud.   They kept referring to her as Mrs Hewett despite introducing me as Gail Hewlett, her granddaughter-in-law.   Disgruntled by such slipshod work, I was also appalled by my wrinkles:  positively crevasse-like!

Invited by Clare Walker (Chair of the RAeS Committee of Women in Aviation and Aeronautics) to speak at the ‘From Pioneers to Presidents.  Celebrating a Century of Women in Aviation’ conference held at the RAeS in London in October 2011 was a particular honour, as I was an amateur in seriously impressive professional company.   My piece about Old Bird with emphasis on her life in aviation was, in comparison to the scientific, practical and motivational contributions, ‘light entertainment’.  I told it like a story, which seemed to go down well.  In fact, two dear elderly ladies, in thanking me for how interesting they had found it, remarked on how much they realised that they loved being told a story.

Being asked to stand up to make ourselves known by Clare Walker when she gave the vote of thanks to the Chief Pilot & Director of Training, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, tiny blonde dynamo and guest lecturer at the RAeS ‘100^th Wilbur and Orville Wright Lecture, was not what Anthony and I had been prepared for!  Thankfully, we were reasonably tidily dressed:  in our ignorance we had not realised the significance of the occasion.   Capt Suzanna Darcy-Hennemann had begun her fascinating illustrated talk with a picture of Old Bird.  Later, when we were properly introduced to her, I did suggest that, should she ever need to refer to Old Bird again, not to misrepresent poor Maurice Hewlett, who was endlessly misquoted about his wife’s flying (Wikipedia, I am sure, is to blame.   I must learn how to correct it).  Conferring on us undeserved status with her inscription, ‘To the fabulous Hewletts’ she autographed our Programme.      We’re not complaining, even if our exaltation is only by association!

And now to the cup!   The Brabazon cup.

FOR OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENTS IN

AVIATION

Presented to the B.W.P.A. by

LORD BRABAZON OF TARA

1960

In all, with stand, it is 10 inches high and handle-to-handle it is 10 inches wide.   Among previous winners are the names of two who, in 2011, were so influential in setting the stage for my unexpected fun:  the aforementioned Clare Walker and Caroline Gough-Cooper, president of the BWPA, international helicopter champion and owner of a little red helicopter which, when I saw her be the last person to fly out from Brooklands, was the coolest thing I had seen.

As guests of the BWPA at their Annual Award and Christmas lunch, Anthony and I were each in for a major surprise.  Mine was that, literally, at the last-minute I became the replacement for the scheduled guest speaker, who was unable to attend and, in that capacity, I was also tasked with handing out the winners’ trophies.   Anthony’s surprise was that he was once again singled out because of his grandmother!   For the BWPA to recognise and honour her achievement, thus, was a fitting and very happy finale to the centenary celebrations.

Thanks to Old Bird.   The Irrepressible Mrs Hewlett I have done things and met enthusiastic and lovely people from worlds far removed mine, both in the UK and New Zealand.  And, last year, I particularly enjoyed my little flicker of limelight.

Check this link out for night aerobatics!