departures

We hope you might enjoy some of the sources we have used to inspire our sound flights, listening to Amy, watching her eyes and body language wondering what it was like being her.

“The intrepid daughter of the city” returns to Hull, and receives a rapturous reception on the balcony of City Hall before a cavalcade in an open top car.
 

 
 
A compilation by Bomberguy of many of Amy’s flights, you get the sense of the noise in the air, the uncomfortable staged filming and public speaking in front of huge crowds. Can you spot the hand holding up her arm tired of flying, tired of waving? Look out for the flock of aircraft that accompanies her arrival in Sydney, impossible to imagine now, more like a flotilla of boats. More archaic language showing how much more than the weather and the limits of technology she had to fight. We were intrigued by the way her accent changes slightly depending on how tired and where in the world she is. Are the cracks in her relationship with Jim Mollison showing as she sets off for Cape Town?
 

 
 

Women pilots? Is the reaction on holiday jets, when a female Captain or First Officer comes over the tannoy, that much different from the attitudes in this drama made in 1932 with Amy and her pilot husband Jim Allison? Prepare to cringe in this extract from Dual Control made in 1932, available in full at the BFI Archive. No wonder Amy liked flying alone!

 
 
Here you can hear recordings of Amy Johnson imitating our own Katherine Horrex imitating Amy. Did she write this herself? Some great images. Compiled by AusRadioHistorian.
 

 
 
Behind the sitled pre-autocue delivery, this British Movietone extract shows how Amy was not just an adventurer and solo pilot but an advocate for the fledgling industry of aviation – caling on the yoof to take to the air!