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Nancy Bird Walton, Born to Fly (1961)

Nancy Bird Walton was a ground-breaking Australian female aviator who earned the nickname ‘The Angel of the Outback’ for her flying medical service. Such was her fame and impact that the new Western Sydney International Airport currently under construction has been named in her honour. When the name was announced, Prime Minister Scott Morrison lauded Bird as ‘Australia’s greatest female aviation pioneer’.

Born on the North Coast of New South Wales in 1915, Bird attended Brighton College in Manly before her education was cut short amidst the beginnings of the Great Depression. Forced to leave school to help her family at age thirteen, she dreamed of flying while working at her father’s general store. Eventually, through thrift and diligence, she saved up £200, bought a jacket and flying helmet, and enrolled as one of the first pupils at Charles Kingsford Smith’s new flying school at Mascot.

Bird excelled as a pilot, clocking up 200 solo hours to become the first woman in Australia to earn a commercial pilot’s license, allowing her to carry passengers. At a time when even ordinary jobs were hard to come by, earning a living as a pilot took tremendous optimism and drive. Bird’s parents bought her a Gypsy Moth and she took off around the country, working at fairs and race meetings, and charging 10 shillings for joy rides.

Having earned a positive reputation, Nancy was hired by Reverend Stanley Drummond of the Far West Children’s Health Scheme to fly nurses around the outback. Navigating with a watch and a compass, she was forced to rely on roadmaps and make careful landings on crude strips that were far below the standards of a commercial runway. Nevertheless, the dangerous work was rewarding and often proved life-saving

When World War Two broke out, Nancy recruited and trained female pilots for a prospective Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force, which was formed by the Menzies Government in March 1941 after considerable lobbying by Bird and her counterparts. Under the restrictions put in place married women were prohibited from serving in the WAAAF, so Nancy spent the duration of the war training others. She later founded the Australian Women’s Pilots’ Association, serving as its president until 1990.

Born to Fly was Bird’s first autobiography, later to be superseded by her 1990 volume My God! It’s A Woman. When it was published, she sent a copy to Menzies with an inscription reading ‘To my dear Prime Minister & Dame Pattie affectionately Nancy Bird. 1961’.

The Menzies probably knew Bird quite well, for her other passion apart from flying was women’s involvement on the Liberal side of Australian politics. Notably, she served on the executive committee of the Australian Women’s Movement Against Socialisation. Formed in 1947, the AWMAS sought to oppose Chifley’s attempt at bank nationalisation, to educate women on politics, and to ensure that they thought and voted separately to their husbands. The organisation was a tremendous success, and by March 1950 it boasted 97 branches and over 7,000 members throughout New South Wales. Its constitution explained:

‘Our crucial concern is to help our Country to realise that a Commonwealth framed in liberty, pulsing with the free-play of individualism, will be a heritage priceless beyond any “Plan” whether the planners be Bureaucrats – Socialists – Communists – or exponents of any other untried ideology. It is felt that by uniting the efforts of women who treasure freedom, this organisation can launch a women’s Crusade for Liberty, the effect of which will be felt throughout the Commonwealth.’

Bird’s involvement may have been partly connected to her career as a pilot, as one of the many fields in which the AWMAS decried ‘socialisation’ was in airline policy. Her political passion proved to be lifelong, for as late as 2004 the Sydney Morning Herald reported her attendance at a formal dinner commemorating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Liberal Party.