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"...it was like sitting down with an old friend..."
Mountain Leader Training Association
"I hope the folks who pick up your book in Waterstones get as much satisfaction out of reading it as I did... a great read, and your books ought to be flying off the shelves"
Airbus Captain Robert Dilworth
I have to congratulate you for being able to write your biography so well; the best part for me was about learning to fly, how brave of you!
Hortensia Perez, Tenerife
‘This is a fascinating story that will appeal to anybody battling with a disability of to those readers with a passion for the hills.’
Soldier Magazine online reviews
View recent Press coverage
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Published: 16 February 2009 |
Inherited eczema and allergies made me different from my classmates, something I did not like. I was lucky. The severity of my eczema had lessened when, in my teens, my PE teacher introduced me to the Snowdonia hills. After four years teaching in a secondary school, with weekends spent in Wales, in 1964 I became a full time mountaineering instructor and mountain rescue first aider in Capel Curig. Then there were few females instructing or leading difficult rock routes. With my husband, a rock climbing guide, we made memorable ascents of 500m vertical Dolomite rock faces and some routes were first female and British ascents.
Divorced in 1976 and with a mortgage to pay I needed a job. I believe that I was the first and only woman civilian to be employed by MOD to train soldiers. At the Infantry Junior Leaders Battalion in Folkestone I learned another language, new codes of behaviour, to drive alone the length and breadth of the UK and to lead expeditions to St Kilda. To teach subjects such as the Theory of Weapons and Military Deployment I requested and had some very useful, unique experiences including participating in some Northern Ireland training, going through Check Point Charlie before the wall came down, seeing the work of the infantry in Cyprus and learning to fire, outdoors on a range, the 7.62mm Self Loading Rifle.
After my early retirement due to Mother’s last illness, and my health, a doctor advised me to take my first holiday in 11 years. I was the second person - and possibly the first female - to go, unaccompanied, to the magical Falkland Islands soon after the conflict. Alone I walked up Tumbledown, communed with wild life and I was told that, "Anyone can learn to fly". So on return, my 50th birthday present, to me, was to get a Private Pilot’s Licence. A year later I flew a Cessna 40 hours solo around Florida.
But nothing I had done was as challenging as surviving, alone, the furiously tourist evenings in Tenerife’s Playa de Las Americas. Only the magical El Teide National Park and the genuine, spontaneous kindness of the Canarians ensured my return. After four years I rented an apartment in Adeje village and then my Spanish improved. Initial suspicious looks disappeared and great welcomes and friendship followed. It was an honour to learn to play the guitar in their night school classes and to be invited to participate in their activities including La Pasión, their very moving, live for television, Good Friday re-enactment of the Crucifixion.
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ISBN: 9781848760202
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