Career or Marriage?

Taranaki Daily News, 17 October 1934, Page 13

Career or Marriage?

Miss Dorothy Spicer, one of England’s most beautiful airwomen and the first woman to gain the Air Ministry’s “B” certificate for ground engineers, has decided to place her career before marriage, and has broken off her engagement to Captain Robert Malcolm Riach, of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders. Miss Spicer, who is fair and in the early twenties, is in partnership with Miss Pauline Gower, daughter of Sir Robert Gower, M.P., in an air-taxi business at Hunstanton, Norfolk—the first business of its kind ever run solely by women. “I am sticking to flying,” Miss Spicer said in a recent interview. Captain Riach has lately come home from Northern Nigeria, where he has been serving with the West African Frontier Force for some time. “I used to write and say how keen I was on flying and that I did not think that I ought to marry,” said Miss Spicer, “but Captain Riach used to write back and say it would be all right when he came home. He came home on leave the other day and I went to London to see him. We talked over the matter and agreed to break off the engagement. But we are still very fond of each other.” Miss Pauline Gower, the partner of Miss Spicer, said that she thought that Miss Spicer was so attracted by flying that she could not give it up. Miss Gower, who was the second woman in England to obtain the Air Ministry’s “B” pilot’s certificate—the first was the late Miss Winifred Spooner —shares with Miss Spicer a cosy little caravan in'a field that they have rented near Hunstanton. Here they keep their three-seater Moth in which they will fly passengers anywhere, Miss Gower acting as pilot and Miss Spicer as chief mechanic.