Speed in the Sky over Brooklands

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The Brooklands Race Track is  best known for automobile racing, but it was also the backdrop for many aviation adventures. This year it´s 100 years ago that the first British woman, Hilda Hewlett, gained a pilot’s licence. A year earlier in 1910 she was the founder of the first Flying School (together with Gustav Blondeau). From those early days on, women have played their part at Brooklands, both in airplanes and racing cars, in fact the very first person to drive on the brand new circuit was a woman: Ethel Locke-King, in her Itala. To celebrate the achievement of Hilda Hewlett, Brooklands will host this weekend the Women in Aviation exhibition with original material from the Brooklands Museum Archive, tracing some of the history surrounding those early days of flying.
While you’re there, do not forget to pick up a copy of Angie Voluti’s brand new début novel, Clay Ghosts in Sicily, based on a true story about a Cypriot pilot and women’s contribution to the war in Sicily.

(photo courtesy Colin Warrington ‘Fast Motors’ archive)

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