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Waiting several days for favorable weather, they finally took off from New-York's Floyd Bennett Field, roared north toward Newfoundland at 200 m.p.h. Taking turns at wheel and radio as they soared across at 10,000 ft., the flyers had no real trouble until over England. There, lost in a fog, they finally came down in Wales with a record crossing of 18 hr. 8 min. Crowing with pleasure. Singer Richman amused himself by handing out $5 bills to the Welsh children who surrounded him. Next day, retanked with gas, the Lady Peace got away in a hazardous takeoff, went on to Croydon. where the flyers were disappointed by the smallness of the crowd, announced they would postpone the return trip for several days. Of utterly no importance or significance to aviation, the flight was of great value to Crooner Richman. Not since his brief engagement to Clara Bow in 1929 had his picture been in the newspapers so often.
¶ Scarcely had Flyers Richman and Merrill landed' at Croydon when they were told that a lone British woman had just taken off from Abingdon in a single-motored sportplane with an almost suicidal minimum of 260 imperial gal. of gas in an attempt to reverse the Lady Peace exploit by flying non-stop to Floyd Bennett Field. Cocking an eye at the weather report, which indicated increasingly bad storms all the way. Flyer Richman gloomily remarked: "T don't think she'll get far with a light plane."
The lone pilot was 33-year-old Mrs. Beryl ("Flying Mother") Markham, a tall, wiry blonde with six years flying experience. Born Beryl Clutterbuck in Melton Mowbray, England, she grew up to be an ardent horsewoman, became prominent as a trainer and jockey on the horsefarm to which her family moved in Britain's Kenya Colony in Africa. In 1927 she married Mansfield Markham, brother of Sir Charles Markham, coal mine owner. They have a 7-year-old son. Gervis. Learning to fly in 1930. Mrs. Markham earned a commercial pilot's license, flew the Africa-England route three times, ran up some 2,000 solo flying hours. In Africa she developed the unique specialty of spotting big-game from the air for such bigwigs as Alfred Vanderbilt, Winston Guest. Few years ago she separated from her husband, began planning a trans-atlantic flight, for which she got the backing of a Kenya syndicate.
Infinitely more dangerous than the West-East crossing because of prevailing head-winds, the East-West transatlantic flight had never been made by a woman alone, had been made solo only once by a man, Captain James Mollison. For the trip, Mrs. Markham ripped out the seats of the Messenger, her little Percival Vaga Gull monoplane, refused a radio in order to carry more fuel. Impatient to be off, she spurned the advice of most experts to wait for better weather, soared away into the rain. Asked why she was going, she said: "Flying is my job and this Atlantic flight is part of it."