“I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance.”

― Beryl Markham, West with the Night

“AT AROUND NOON on the 5 September 1936, a pair of fisherman came across a woman floundering her way through a bog in in Cape Breton, on the eastern shores of Nova Scotia. In the background somewhere was her single-engined Percival Vega Gull aircraft, its nose buried deep in the moss and the peat and its tail sticking in the air. Blood streamed down the woman’s face and black peat went up to the waist of her formerly white overalls: ‘I’m Mrs Markham,’ she told them. ‘I’ve just flown from England.’

Taken to a local farmhouse, the aviator asked for a cup of tea and for a phone. She was directed to ‘a little cubicle that housed an ancient telephone’ built on the rocks, ‘put there in case of shipwrecks,’ she recalled. Over the line she told the operator: ‘I would like the airport notified and could you also ask someone to send a taxi for me?’

Beryl Markham, 33, had just succeeded in becoming the first person to fly non-stop, solo, from Europe to North America. She was also the first woman to fly east-west non-stop, solo across the Atlantic. Heading against the wind and into uncertain weather, it was an audacious achievement, but because she had not reached her intended destination – New York City – she initially considered herself a failure.

Within hours, however, she realised that the world saw it differently. The feat placed her alongside the greats of the golden age of aviation, not least Charles Lindbergh – the first person to fly the Atlantic solo – or Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly the Atlantic (she went east-west, like Lindburgh, with the prevailing winds) or indeed Britain’s Amy Johnson, the first woman to fly solo from Britain to Australia in 1930.

Congratulations flooded in from around the world. Earhart told the New York Times: ‘I’m delighted beyond words that Mrs Markham should have succeeded in her exploit and has conquered the Atlantic. It was a great flight.’ And a day later Markham arrived in New York where she was feted and given a hero’s welcome – including a motorcade through the city and a suite at the Ritz-Carlton. ‘America,’ she pronounced, ‘is jolly grand.’”

#BerylMarkham #shedidthat #AviationPioneer #fypシ゚

#FemaleAviator

Today’s Literary Calendar birthdays include Steven Kellogg’s “The Mysterious Tadpole”! Happy Birthday wishes to all: Andrew Motion, Beryl Markham, Charles Sprague, Deborah Blum, Eric Rohmann, Jim Butcher, John Arden, John Robbins, Mike Godwin, Napoleon Hill, Pat Conroy, Stacy Schiff, Steven Kellogg and Steven L. Carter Learn more about each at: https://slickcatbooks.com/pages/literary-calendar-2021 #slickcatbooks #greatbooksgreatmemories #literarycalendar #birthdays #authorsbirthdays #morethanastore #andrewmotion #berylmarkham #charlessprague #deborahblum #ericrohmann #jimbutcher #johnarden #johnrobbins #mikegodwin #napoleanhill #patconroy #stacyschiff #stevenkellogg #stevenlcarter https://www.instagram.com/p/CVf8yNgFTvV/?utm_medium=tumblr

After #berylmarkham #alexandrafuller it had to be #isakdinesen #africa @nypl #bonconfinement (at Hauz Khas, New Delhi) https://www.instagram.com/p/CDjsge5FWK_/?igshid=myrab8e3v9ov

1985 SC Straight on till Morning : The Biography of Beryl Markham by Mary S. Lovell. Light wear to wraps, Foxing to edges, and paperclip rust to a few pages as shown. 📦$6 shipped in the US. Link in bio, claim in comments or DM to purchase. 📚🛩️🌎 #berylmarkham #transatlanticflight #soloflight #maryslovell #biography #femalepilot #bushpilot #aviation #aviationpioneer #vintagebook #vintage #booksofinstagram #bookstagram #booksbooksbooks #bookseller #bookworm #bibliophile #bookaneer #bookaneer4sale (at Dodge Center, Minnesota) https://www.instagram.com/p/B_3aCssgrg6/?igshid=1ak3wue1qvhar

ARTmail for nov is going out to my monthly subscribers. Beryl Markham as the archetype of the female adventurer. African Bush pilot in the literary British ex pat scene in Nairobi in the 1920-40's. Horse race trainer, coffee plantation owner, aviator, and writer. She wrote to put a good life down on paper so she might revisit it often. "West with the night" is a masterpiece of a memoir that put #Hemingway to shame. #berylmarkham (at Velcrow Studios)

Finally got my book West with the Night back. Markham really makes me think. Not just about our relationship to the natural world, but our sense of motion within it. #berylmarkham #womanpilot #naturequotes #femalenaturequotes (at Los Padres National Forest) https://www.instagram.com/p/B0jAXpLA90r/?igshid=sfglah7ev0bg

Nel 1906 il capitano Charles Clutterbuck, educato alla prestigiosa accademia reale di Sandhurst, abbandona la sua casa nel Leicestershire e si trasferisce in Kenia, portando con sé soltanto Beryl, la sua bambina di quattro anni. Beryl vivrà tutta la sua vita in Africa. Una vita cominciata in una capanna di fango, nella foresta che suo padre aveva deciso di disboscare per creare una fattoria, e terminata in una casetta vicina all'ippodromo di Nairobi. "A occidente con la notte" è il racconto di questa straordinaria esistenza in cui le ombre si dileguano dinanzi alle vette che essa fu in grado di raggiungere. Donna dalla meravigliosa andatura e dai lunghi capelli biondi che parlava lo swahili, il nandi e il masai, addestrava cavalli come pochi, volava come nessun'altra (fu la prima ad attraversare l'Atlantico da est a ovest in solitaria, decollando dall'Inghilterra e atterrando in Nova Scotia ventuno ore e venticinque minuti dopo), ebbe tre mariti e un figlio, inventò la caccia grossa con l'uso degli aerei, collezionò ogni sorta di trofei e finì i suoi giorni in un piccolo appartamento di Nairobi, dove fu anche percossa e rapinata, Beryl Markham fu una scrittrice di assoluto talento, capace di restituirci magnificamente l'Africa incantata della prima metà del secolo scorso.... #libridisecondamano #ravenna #bookstagram #booklovers #bookstore #instabook #igersravenna #instaravenna #ig_books #berylmarkham (presso Libreria Scattisparsi) https://www.instagram.com/p/BxROmYun3mZ/?igshid=regnsn2en6ip

"I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance." - Beryl Markham #memories #berylmarkham #beryl #Markham #berylmarkhamquote #Bangalore #karnataka #southindia #india #jaggyasenee #jaggyaseneechakraborty #artyjc (at VR Bengaluru) https://www.instagram.com/jaggyaseneechakraborty/p/BuDNKXch7LG/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=17pxd9sn6e7iw

Stunning read this #westwiththenight by #berylmarkham #kenya #africa #nypl (at SDA - Safdarjung Development Area) https://www.instagram.com/p/B03ntiuFDyx/?igshid=1fbx0ecaqsel1

A grid of artmail. #berylmarkham aviator and inspiration to women. Female icons should have their day. #metoo #artmail is a monthly subscription of postcards of original art mailed every month. Dealing with different social or cultural issues of American identity. Subscribe or order individually at NOEArt gift shop on Etsy.