MOLLISON'S TRIBUTE

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 134, 8 June 1936, Page 17

MOLLISON'S TRIBUTE

HIS PRIDE IN AMY.

MET IN BRISBANE.

HOW SHE SAVED HIS LIFE. (Special.—By Air Mail.) LONDON, May 16. Mrs. Mollison's Cape flight record lias been made the occasion by Mr. Jim Mollison to pay a striking tribute to his wife, and this is what he says: "If two people, even though they are men—and in 'this case it was Amy and myself—■ takes a desperate chance, such as flying tho Atlantic from east to west, it creates a curious spiritual bond which nothing that either of us may do can possibly break. By the very nature of our lives Amy and I are compelled to spend long periods of time apart from each other. But distance cannot be measured by miles in a case like ours. After our ups and downs and everything we have gone through the fact remains that Amy is the only person for whom I could ever really care. And it is the same with her feelings towards me. "Besides, I owe my life to her. When we flew the Atlantic together and crashed 39 miles from New York, there I was lying face down in three. inches of sea water and would unquestionably have drowned if Amy had not pulled me out. That is a story that I have never told before. We had landed in a tidal marsh. I could taste that brine for days. Funny, wasn't it, that, having flown over thousands of miles of the Atlantic, I was practically i drowned in three inches of water? I repeat but for Amy I would have been.

"The way we met was peculiar. I was the senior pilot of the Australian National Air Lines when Amy crashed at Brisbane. I was sent up to fly her round the rest of her schedule. My first reaction was that it was a marvellous break from my routine job of flying from Melbourne to Sydney and back. On the occasion when we first met she came into the cockpit and I asked her for a dance at the ball which was being given in her honour that night. She said ' O.K.' I asked her for another. She again 6aid ' O.K.' "When I appeared that night at the ball given by the Governor, Sir Philip Game, now Commissioner of Police in London, all talcum powdered and in a suit of tails, I went up to Sir Philip and said, ' Miss Johnson promised me two dances.' His reply in so many words was ' Scram.' One individual cannot battle against a social system established ever since the first Roman Governor of Great Britain. I had no choice. I scrammed. I did not see her for another year. By chance Bhe was in Capetown on a cruise after appendicitis on the day I broke the record from London to "the Cape, which she has now broker.. Well, we got engaged and were married as soon as we returned to London at St. George's, Hanover Square."