FIRST AEROPLANE TRIP

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20186, 2 March 1940, Page 14

FIRST AEROPLANE TRIP

WOMAN AGED 95 YEARS MRS. B. MCRAE, AUCKLAND To be able to look down through 95 years is the privilege of Mrs. Bertha Mcßae, of Auckland, who is at present staying with her youngest son, Mr. F. S. Mcßae, Palmerston North. Mrs. Mcßae made the trip south by aeroplane. It was her first flight, which she enjoyed immensely, but the real interest in the trip, lay not so much in the fact that she had taken to the air at such a ripe old age as in the fact that it completed for her a cavalcade of transport seldom falling to the lot of people these days. Mrs. 'Mcßae’s father was Captain Richard Scott, whose brig Spray sailed the Tasman almost a century ago. As a small girl she saw much travel under canvas. When the family settled in Nelson she was about eight or nine years old. At the age of 10 she captivated the eye of Mr. Philip Mcßae, who swfept her oil' her feet on to a packhorse bound for the Awatere Valley, Marlborough, ns his wife. Transport was all by packhorse in those days, vehicles coming a long time afterward. For about 25 years she lived in Marlborough and, following her husband's death, went to Palmerston North, where she lived for six or seven years. Since then she has been living with a daughter, Mrs. T. H. Hanna, of Parnell, Auckland. During the intervening years Mrs McRae has made the acquaintance of .coach, train, and other means of travel, culminating her experiences with the aeroplane trip from Auckland to Palmerston North.