Amy Johnson

by Constance Babington Smith

The Sunday Times, July 2003: The biggest problem facing any biographer of Amy Johnson is that Constance Babington Smith got there first. Her seminal life, written in 1966, told most of what there is to tell about Amy in elegant prose. In May, 1930, Amy Johnson, a typist from Hull, took off from Croydon Airport with a thermos flask and a packet of sandwiches to try and beat the world solo record to Australia. She arrived, sun-blistered and with grease on her face, after weeks of flying a second-hand, open-cockpit biplane with no radio communication and the most basic of maps. Her adventures, including a forced landing in the Iraqi desert and on a football pitch near Rangoon, inspired the nation following the Great War. Her career was followed by millions, until her plane disappeared over the Thames Estuary, sparking rumours which are still being investigated today. Her body has never been found.

Genres: Aviation, Biography

416 pages, Paperback

Published February 1, 2004