PD: That’s a brave way of putting it.
GH: Not really. All we early aviators accepted that risk. Both Rollo and Amy would be the first to admit that. These were glorious times. The Golden Age of Flight. But a dangerous time too. I suppose that is what made it so glorious. So glamorous even. The danger. But despite being aware of all of that, these tragedies still have an effect. Of course they do. After Rollo disappeared I stopped flying for a while. When Amy was killed I enlisted with the ATA.
PD: Are you OK to go on? We could take a break for a few minutes.
GH: It’s fine, I’m happy to continue. But no more about Rollo, please.
PD: Well, let’s move on to the outbreak of war and the establishment of what you just mentioned there, the ATA or the Air Transport Auxiliary. I’m sure many of our listeners will never have heard of it. Would you mind explaining?
GH: The ATA was formed when it looked like war with Germany was imminent. The idea was to create a back-up air service to the fighting squadrons for things like transport, ferrying planes around between factories and bases, non-operational stuff. Initially, it was only for men who were experienced flyers but too old or infirm to be fighter pilots. It was Pauline – Pauline Gower – a very experienced flyer with lots of high-up connections – who managed to get the women on board as well. I wasn’t involved in the initial batch though. The First Eight as they were called.
PD: Was there any resistance to women being part of the RAF?
GH: [LAUGHTER] What do you think, Peter? Of course there was. Many people thought women were incapable of doing such a job, and even if we were capable, we were accused of taking the toys away from the boys. Pauline persisted though. It made so much sense. Some of us were very experienced pilots and instructors. Pauline herself had over two thousand hours in the air. I had twelve hundred myself. You know, Peter, I am old enough now to have lived through both the suffragette movement and the feminist movement of the 1960s, both worthy advances of women’s causes in their own right. But I can tell you something – I have never felt prouder, freer, more liberated, more joyous, more exhilarated and yes, more equal – after all we ATA female pilots ended up getting paid the same as the men – as I did in the company of those courageous women.
PD: What kind of work did you do?
GH: At the very beginning, The First Eight were just given the light, single-engined aircraft to ferry around from the factories or to pick up those impounded from civilian bases. By the time I came along, we were starting to be allowed to fly Hurricanes and Spitfires as well. Not in combat, of course. God forbid the RAF would actually allow a woman to fly into battle. The Russians to their credit were the only ones to have female fighter pilots during the war. The Night Witches they were called.
PD: Night Witches?
GH: The Germans dubbed them that. These Russian women used to carry out harassment bombing at night in these old wooden bi-planes, cutting their engines before the target area and gliding in very low with their bombs. The sound of the wind through the struts and canvas would give a swishing sound. The Germans thought it sounded like broomsticks rushing through the air. And so… Night Witches. Brave women but a bit mad too, flying these crop dusters into a sky full of Messerschmitts. I wouldn’t have done it myself. For love or country. Or the ATA.
PD: It was also around this time you met the film director, Douglas Mitchell.
GH: It seems many of the men in my life were involved with airplanes in one way or another. My father was shot down in one, Rollo disappeared in one, and yes, as you say, I met Doug in one.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Entering the Vaults
Laura didn’t know if it was the video delay or Sal was moving slower than usual but it did seem to take him quite a while to get settled in front of his computer screen.
‘Howdy,’ he said.
‘Good afternoon. Or I guess I should say “good morning”.’
‘Whatever it is, it’s too early for me.’
‘Bad mood?’
‘Editing into the small hours. How did things go with my pal Quentin?’
‘Surprisingly well.’
‘I thought you said the play was awful.’
‘My critical faculties were blinded by my distaste for the man.’
‘Well, that should make you feel better.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That you weren’t blackmailed into producing something crap.’
‘It doesn’t excuse his manipulation of me. Nor yours.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘The film crew.’
‘They didn’t show?’
‘They turned up all right. And I had to pay them.’
‘A thousand dollars.’
‘Six hundred and fifty pounds.’
‘Sounds about right.’
‘You said you would cover their cost.’
‘And so I will.’
‘Sal. This is your production. I’m your cast. It’s not up to me to finance this. Especially the way my career is at the moment.’
‘I thought we were partners.’
‘That’s never been discussed.’
‘Well, we can discuss it now.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Did Quentin sign the access consent?’
‘On the dotted line.’
‘Everything?’
‘All that is in his possession. Letters, papers, all the photographs, radio interviews, some video. The lot. Total access.’
‘That means we can start bringing in the investors.’
‘You can start bringing in investors.’
‘What do you think about Caroline?’
‘What about her?’
‘Her husband – that Sir Lew guy – he’s loaded.’
‘There’s no way I’m going to ask Caroline for money.’
‘She kind of owes you a favour now.’
‘Owes you a favour. If you want to approach her, that’s up to you. Just keep me out of it.’
‘I thought you wanted we should be partners.’
‘I wanted that we should talk it through properly. When are you going to be back over here?’
‘A couple of weeks tops.’
‘I prefer we discuss it then. Face to face.’
‘What do you think this is?’
‘Skype to Skype. It’s not the same.’
‘What will you do in the meantime?’
‘I’m going to see Quentin.’
She drove over to the Cotswolds in her own little Mini which felt incredibly small as she entered through Quentin’s estate gates and up the gravel path towards the manor house. Victoria had offered to accompany her – you should not allow yourself to be left alone with that man. She declined the offer. She was sure she could handle Quentin Holloway all by herself.
‘Come to claim the spoils,’ he said by way of a greeting.
‘You make it sound sordid.’
‘I apologise, I apologise. My permission was fairly won. I was absolutely delighted with the performance. I’ve been watching the video all morning.’
‘I’m glad it made you happy.’
‘Would you like something to eat or drink before we begin?’
‘I’d like to see what’s ahead of me first.’
‘I have a special room.’
He led her upstairs. Thick carpet, brass rods, dark ceiling beams set off by white walls, a series of Tudor doors, possibly original, in dark oak with black ornate latches and handles. Quentin stopped before one of them.
‘A couple of things before we go in.’
‘Yes?’
‘This is my study,’ he said, pointing to the adjacent door. ‘Inside there is a photocopier and scanner. I am quite happy for you to copy certain documents. But it will be in my sole discretion which ones.’
‘It was agreed I should have total access.’
‘That is the key word, Laura. “Access”. That you will have. But I will not allow any secondary material to le
ave here without my permission.’
‘Agreed. Anything else?’
‘Your mobile phone.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. I don’t want you taking photographs of any documents without my permission either.’
She handed over her phone.
‘Shall we go in?’ he said.
She stared at the door. It was as if she was about to reveal herself to Georgie than the other way around.
‘Laura?’
‘I’m ready.’
The room was set out as the study it no doubt had been for Georgie. A large desk sat by the window with a view out to the garden and the fields beyond. A leather chair, two grey-metal filing cabinets, a typewriter, a computer, a telephone. All the usual fittings for a home office. Except for the photographs. Every section of wall space was covered with Georgie’s work. It was an exhibition. An homage. An exposé. Many of them iconic images of the previous century. A lot of nature photography she had never seen before, even though she thought she possessed every single book released of her work. It took Laura’s breath away in her excitement of it all.
‘Oh, look at these,’ she said at the sight of some small, black and white headshots.
‘Bedouin,’ Quentin said. ‘The very first photographs she ever took.’
‘When would that be?’
‘September nineteen thirty four. Sinai Desert. A trip she made with Roland Paxton-Jones. It’s all in the archive.’
‘These faces. So natural.’
‘They really trusted her. She had that way about her. You felt you could tell her anything.’
‘You could see she had a talent. Even then.’
‘She was more interested in flying in those days. But she could have been so many things.’
‘Do you mind?’ she asked, signalling the chair.
‘Go ahead. You may treat this room as your own. Everything is in the filing cabinets. Beginning top left, in chronological order. I’ve made a CD of her nineteen eighty-two radio interview with the BBC which you can play through the computer. There are transcripts as well, if you prefer. The extracts from her unpublished memoir will probably be the most useful to you, again in chronological order. I’ve left pad and paper for notes. Dial zero for an outside line. Dial nine for internal. The numbers are all there. Please order anything you want from the kitchen. Cook is on hand until eight every evening.’
As Laura rocked gently in Georgie’s chair, she noticed the small framed black and white photograph on the desk. Nothing more than a snapshot really. Two women sitting in an open-top sports car, the older one being Georgie.
‘Who’s that with her?’ Laura asked.
‘Oh, that’s my mother.’
‘Susan?’
‘Yes, Susan. That would have been just after the war. Down at Grandma Ginny’s farm in Sussex. My mother would only have been about eighteen then.’
‘The two of them look so happy together.’
‘That photograph has acquired a bit of a mythical quality in our family. Seemingly Grandma Ginny clambered up on to the bonnet to take it. I don’t remember her myself but she did have a reputation for being a feisty lady.’
‘It’s unusual even to see a picture of Georgie.’
‘I know. That’s the case, isn’t it? Always the photographer, never the photographed.’
Chapter Thirty
The Hepburn Archives
Extract from an unpublished memoir
The First Eight group of female ATA pilots attracted a lot of press attention when they started out, glamour girls of the sky, all that sort of thing. After all, there wasn’t much good news around in those early days of the war so what better way of boosting morale than by having a few snaps of the ‘ATA-girls’ brightening up the breakfast table. Even when I joined up a year and a half later, there were still a lot of photographers snooping around for a story. Some of my crowd would encourage the attention, rushing off to the London clubs and parties as soon as a day’s flying was over, drumming up a few headlines for the next day’s papers yet still making it back to base in time for the first morning flight. That kind of life wasn’t for me though, I was always thinking of Rollo every time I took to the sky, I still do.
Anything to Anywhere. That was the unofficial slogan of the ATA and that pretty much was the job I had to do, ferrying all kinds of aircraft here, there and everywhere. The main ferry pool was at White Waltham near Maidenhead, I was stationed at Hamble in Hampshire but basically we could be sent all over the country, even as far as Lossiemouth up in the north of Scotland. Sometimes in an open cockpit bi-plane with only basic instruments and without radios, the only method of navigation was by following landmarks, not a particularly safe way to fly through low clouds which could be most of the time.
The factories were churning out fighter planes as fast as they could, perhaps as many as thirty a week, and one of our tasks was to get them away from these manufacturers as quickly as possible, prime targets for the Luftwaffe that they were, and over to the M.U.s (Maintenance Units) for armament and munitions to be installed. I never knew what I would be flying one day to the next, it could be a Spitfire or a Hurricane or a Mosquito or even one of my old Tiger Moths. It was a ride in the Spitfires I savoured the most, I absolutely loved them, we all did, it was like slipping into a bespoke suit, that plane really felt a part of me as I swung it through the sky. It was like dancing with a lover.
It must have been around mid-1943, I was commissioned to fly a group of pilots up to the aircraft factory at Castle Bromwich in an Avro Anson to collect some ready-for-battle Spitfires. I was a bit miffed for being the one to do the ferrying, missing out on my own chance to have a dance with one of the new Spits but orders were orders. After dropping off the pilots, I then had to go on to the RAF station at Ringway near Manchester to pick up a film crew on some propaganda shoot for the Ministry of Information, take them back to London.
There were five of them in the crew, all men, the director and his four minions with a whole load of equipment. I didn’t usually have anyone sitting up beside me on a short hop like this one but the Anson only has four seats at the back so it would have been churlish of me not to let one of them come up front unless the poor man wanted to spend the entire journey jammed into the gun turret. That person turned out to be the director himself, Douglas Mitchell.
Doug must have been close to fifty then, still a good-looking man in the Douglas Fairbanks mould, grey-blue eyes, a good shock of hair, a thin moustache topping a wide, wide smile that could charm even a hollowed-out woman like me. We introduced ourselves, he made himself comfortable in the co-pilot seat as if he were a born flyer, strapped himself in and was chatting away even as the Anson was speeding along the runway. The conversation as I remember it went something like this:
‘So, tell me, Second Officer Hepburn,’ he said. ‘I heard some of the male pilots don’t like being ferried around by a woman. Is that true?’
‘It’s been known to happen,’ I replied as I lifted the Anson clean into the air with that familiar creaking sound these twin-engined beauties were renowned for. The noise didn’t faze Doug a bit.
‘I pity the poor buggers then.’ He glanced at me when he swore, probably wondering whether I could take a bit of cursing like a man. ‘I prefer a woman driver myself.’
‘Why is that?’
‘A lot more attractive for a start.’
I was hoping the view of Manchester off to his right was grabbing his attention for I felt myself suddenly redden to my roots at his comment. My reaction surprised me. After all, I was used to having my fair share of male gibe and innuendo thrown at me on a daily basis. But there was something about this man that caught me off-guard.
‘Is that all you can say about the wonderful women of the ATA?’ I said, trying to keep the conversation professional, even though we were huddled together, our shoulders and knees touching.
‘I have nothing but admiration for you all,’ he said. ‘The sooner you women take over
the planet, the better off we’ll be. No more damned wars for a start. Can’t see a woman trying to take us into war, can you?’
I wasn’t so sure I agreed but I kept my opinion to myself, I knew quite a few women in my squadron who’d only be too happy to gun down a few Jerries from the Luftwaffe. Doug went quiet for a while himself until he said: ‘You look familiar.’
‘We’ve never met,’ I replied.
‘Are you sure?’
‘I would have remembered.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ he said with a chuckle and again I felt myself flush. What the hell was happening to me? I loosened my belt so I could lean forward to make an unnecessary check of the various gauges on my instrument panel.
‘Haven’t been in the film business, have you?’ he asked once I had settled back in my seat.
Even hard-hearted me couldn’t resist that bait. ‘Way back in the Stone Age,’ I said.
‘When was that?’
‘Before the talkies.’
‘It wasn’t that long ago.’ Doug turned towards me, drew himself back so he could have a full view of my profile. ‘I recognize you now, Second Officer Hepburn,’ he said.
‘I doubt that.’ I gave the controls a little jiggle so he’d sit back properly in his seat. I heard a groan from back in the passenger area.
‘The Woman Walks Free. Is that it?’
I actually felt my chest swell up under my safety belt from the sheer joy of being remembered. ‘Well done,’ I said evenly, trying to remain unflustered by his interest.
‘I loved that film… now, give me a second and I’ll just get your first name, memory isn’t as good as it used to be… Jean?… Grace?… Georgina… Georgina Hepburn. Am I right?’
‘Bingo again.’
‘Well, what do you know,’ Doug said, slapping his thigh. ‘What happened to you after that? I don’t remember seeing you in anything else.’
‘Talkies killed me.’
‘Killed a lot of people,’ he said. ‘That was a great film though. One of the best roles for a woman around at the time. A Max Rosen script.’
‘You remember Max?’
‘I don’t need to. I know him now.’
‘Really?’
‘He works with me at the Ministry. Writes a lot of this propaganda stuff that I direct. It’s pretty mindless work compared to being a proper scenarist. But there’s a war on…’
A Woman of Integrity Page 13