4.2 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 14 December 2023
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Broadcaster and author Iszi Lawrence chooses the aviator Diana Barnato Walker. Coming from a privileged background, Diana used her pocket money to take flying lessons, flew bombers during World War II, and - aged 45 - became the first British woman to break the sound barrier. Iszi is joined by Giles Whittell, author of Spitfire Women of World War II, and Diana’s son Barney Walker.
Presented by Matthew Parris Produced in Bristol by Beth Sagar-Fenton
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0:00.0 | Once you've wrapped up this podcast, how about trying a very British cult? |
0:06.0 | What happens if the person you trust with your future isn't what you think they are? |
0:10.0 | I did feel the whole time he was watching me Yeti. |
0:14.0 | I saw a footprint and that really gave me goosebumps. |
0:16.0 | Or people who knew me. |
0:18.0 | Emmy, I remember every secret, every lie. |
0:21.0 | I'm the only one who knows the truth. |
0:23.0 | Discover more of our biggest podcast from 2003. |
0:27.0 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
0:30.0 | This is the BBC. |
0:34.0 | There's only one place to start this programme, 56,000 feet up in the air. |
0:39.0 | It's 1963, a middle-aged woman is focusing on the horizon. |
0:45.0 | She's been waiting for this moment a long, long time. |
0:48.0 | A moment when the many adventures she's had before, |
0:51.0 | and there have been a lot lot pale into insignificance. The huge twin |
0:55.6 | engines of the lightning T4 reach full power and as she eases the plane up over |
1:01.1 | the thousand mile per hour mark, she knows she's just made history, the first |
1:06.7 | British woman to break the sound barrier as a pilot. With one final thrust, she pushes to 1,250 miles per hour becoming for a while the |
1:17.8 | world's fastest female aviator coming back down to Earth and to the studio. I'm joined by the person nominating our great life, |
1:26.4 | Is he Lawrence. Is he, I really struggle to sum up your career so far, not because there's any lack of things to say but because you're so |
1:35.3 | very various I mean writer and broadcaster just doesn't cut it you're the resident |
1:40.8 | guru on Radio 4's comedy travel series, Your Place or Mine. |
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