User:Jimforhist

Winifred Spooner, aviatrix, was the only woman in the country to earn a living as personal pilot to an owner of private aeroplanes (Lindsay Everard M.P. at Ratcliffe Hall, north of Leicester) and manage his private airfield; the first woman to compete in the King’s Cup Air Race and win the Siddeley Trophy; the winner of the Harman Trophy for being the world’s outstanding aviatrix; the first woman to compete in the Challenge International de Tourisme; holder of the Gold Medal of The German Aero Club; holder of the Lufthansa Prize; holder of the Trophy of the International League of Aviators; holder of a special commemorative medal presented on behalf of Mussolini; first holder of the Imperial Tobacco Company Trophy; first in the light aircraft contest in Round Europe Contest, and organiser of the first ever Night Flying Pageant to be held in the country. Winnie Evelyn Spooner was born on the 11th of September 1900 at Woolwich in Kent. She was the only daughter of Major Walter Spooner, veterinary surgeon to the 14th Hussars, and Annie whom he married in 1891. She had four brothers: Cecil, Walter, Frank and Hugh. In 1901, the year of Major Spooner’s early death, the Spooner family moved to the tiny village of Hinton Parva, near Swindon in Wiltshire. Little is known about Winnie’s early life but between the ages of fifteen and seventeen she attended Sherborne School for Girls in Dorset. In 1927 she took flying lessons at the London Aeroplane Club at Stag Lane, London where she obtained her pilot’s licence and commercial pilot’s licence. She then started a one-woman air taxi service and rapidly earned a reputation of reliability and safety. Around that time her brothers, Tony and Frank, leased some farmland and stables in Wokingham, Berkshire where they schooled and sold polo-ponies, hunters and steeplechasers. They called their enterprise The Polo Farm. Winnie joined them to look after Frank’s niece Vivien. Fortunately there was a field on the farm big enough upon which to land a light aircraft so Winnie moved her business to The Polo Farm. The only long-distance record flight that Winnie ever undertook was from London to Cape Town in a Desoutter II aeroplane. She wanted to prove that it could be done in five days by flying day and night. Her co-pilot was Flt. Lt. Cecil Edwards. While she was asleep the plane crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea between Rome and Benghaz. As Edwards couldn’t swim Winnie left him sitting on top of the wooden fuselage and swam two miles to land to get help. After she returned to England Winnie was driven in a fire engine to Wokingham Town Hall where she was given a heroine’s reception. In 1932 Winnie returned to Sherborne School for Girls with her friend Amy Johnson to help raise money for a swimming pool. Their joy rides at 10 shillings each were so popular that a lot of money was raised. Early in January 1933 Winnie caught a cold which turned into pneumonia and the local doctor sent for a specialist from Nottingham. Unfortunately because of thick fog the specialist lost his way and the oxygen he was bringing, which might have saved her life, arrived too late. Winnie, who had been dogged by bad luck all her life, suffered a heart attack and died on Friday January 13th. Her remains were taken to St. Swithin’s Church at Hinton Parva where she was buried beside her parents.