 |
|
Broadcast on Monday 23rd August 1999 RICK BATTEN I am Rick Batten. I'm the nephew of Jean Batten, CBE, the first person to fly from England to New Zealand direct, in 1936. I first met Auntie Jean probably when I was about eight. My parents put me on a train, and I went to Auckland on the train. And Jean met me at the railway station. She was a very glamorous lady, really. Of course, in those days I was too young to appreciate any other qualities. And I heard of her next in 1933, when she made her first attempt to fly from England to Australia. Great excitement, and much worry of course.My father was quite worried. If she went missing for any length of time or hadn't arrived where she was supposed to arrive on time, there were the usual worries, you know. She crashed following engine failure. In 1934, she had another attempt, England to Australia, and she broke Amy Johnson's record on that occasion. In 1935, she flew from Australia to England - the first woman to fly from England to Australia and back. And then in 1935 again, she flew from England to Brazil. At that time, she had the new Percival Gold 6 or the Gipsy 16. And she held the absolute world record for pilots of either sex in any type of aircraft. In 1936, she flew from England to New Zealand in the Percival Gold. And that was the world absolute record. I was about Standard Five or Standard Six in primary school at the time, and the envy of all the other kids. There was a certain amount of ragging too. It wasn't all "Well done". It was: "Oh, somebody will break that record before long", and all that sort of thing. People did want to talk to her. But she seemed not to want to be too involved. She used to say: "I'm very, very tired. I'm very, very tired." And I think that was her way of saying: "I don't want to be bothered with people." There was one great love in her life. And that was Beverley Shepherd, an Australian pilot. He had gone up to Brisbane. And he was to be back in Sydney when she returned to Sydney after her epic flight in 1936. She arrived in Sydney and Beverley wasn't there to meet her. And what had happened was that he had hitched a ride as co-pilot on a passenger plane. And that crashed in the McPherson Ranges. And he was killed. Jean, immediately her plane landed, joined the search. And she searched for days and days and days and days - until eventually she gave up. She became very introverted and flew the Percival Gold back to England from Australia. I think she was very lonely. She never ever had any other very deep involvements with men, as far as I know. Later on, I really believe that she didn't know where she was going and what she intended to do. I think she moved around a little bit. And in 1982 she went to London. And she decided that she would go to Majorca. And from then on, nobody heard anything. That really was a complete and utter mystery. We weren't that worried, for the simple reason that Jean was always doing this. She didn't really like people knowing where she was, what she was doing or what her intentions were. And it emerged, eventually, that she had died in a small guest-house. She'd died as a result of a dog-bite. The maid wanted her to see a doctor, but Jean refused. And, almost from that day, she developed a fever, which got worse and worse, until the maid ran off to get someone - and when she came back, Jean had died: just like that. E N D
|
