{"product_id":"old-bird-the-irrepressible-mrs-hewlett-9781848763371","title":"Old Bird. The Irrepressible Mrs Hewlett","description":"\u003cp\u003e • Author(s): Bonamy Dobree\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher: Troubador Publishing\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher Imprint: Troubador Publishing\u003cbr\u003e • BISAC: General\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor a mother to teach her son to drive is perhaps not so unusual, but for her to teach him to fly? Given that the year was 1911, that was most likely a first. But Hilda B. Hewlett had already achieved a first in the world of aviation. Three months earlier she had become the first English woman to gain a pilot's licence.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e How was it that the middle-aged wife of a well-known author came to be counted among the early aviation pioneers? A daughter of the vicar of an impoverished parish in South London, Hilda Beatrice Herbert was born in 1864 and married Maurice Hewlett, a barrister in Antiquarian Law, in 1888. He aspired to be a writer and Billy, as Hilda was affectionately known, encouraged him.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e When, ten years later, he published his best seller, a romantic historical novel, The Forest Lovers, the Hewletts began to enjoy unimaginable prosperity and Maurice was on his way to becoming a full-time writer and a member of the literary London scene. Billy, meanwhile, was acquiring a reputation for unconventionality.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e She already drove and maintained her own car, but it was whilst watching a new-fangled contraption of an aircraft rise and fly above a muddy field that Billy was fired with an all-consuming desire. To own and fly just such a machine she was prepared to endure cold and hunger, boredom and poverty. It was a venture that was to take her into aircraft manufacture throughout WWI and to settle her, eventually, as Old Bird - her grandchildren only ever knew her as Old Bird - in New Zealand.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Troubador Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":47891473072279,"sku":"9781848763371","price":1590.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0666\/3471\/1191\/files\/9781848763371.webp?v=1781183820","url":"https:\/\/atlanticbooks.com\/products\/old-bird-the-irrepressible-mrs-hewlett-9781848763371","provider":"Atlantic Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}