The heroic story of a true pioneer

I won’t reproduce it again here (if you want to read it – and I heartily recommend you do – click here) but within 24 hours of the tale being republished, I had an email from Pauline Hannibal, headteacher at Merry Hill Infant School and Nursery in School Lane, Bushey – the aforementioned Miss Fleet’s grand-daughter.

She told me that her grandmother – real name Mrs Florence Hay – used Miss Fleet as her professional name and that she had five children, the fifth of which was Pauline’s mother, Edith Florence. Mrs Hay made many parachute jumps, all from balloons, raising money for charity all over the country, but stopped after the birth of her fourth child, probably around 1916.

Pauline told me about a second article about Miss Fleet’s exploits published in the Watford Observer, this time in March 1944.

Headed “Story of the air which has not been censored” (it was wartime, of course, so a lot of the news at the time was heavily edited) it runs as follows:

“Far away in the sky a tiny speck came hurtling earthwards; so high up was it that the crowd of anxious watchers below could scarcely trace its fall. Suddenly the downward rush was halted. The speck became enveloped by a parachute; gradually it billowed out and brought its burden gently to the ground. The watchers expended their pent-up excitement in sighs of relief.

“Did they hurry to the spot to see what help they could give some baled-out Spitfire pilot, or make prisoner a crestfallen Nazi Flier?

“Actually they did neither, for this was 43 years ago, on a summer’s day in 1901, when Mrs Florence Hay – or Miss Florence Frisby as she then was – of 21 Oxhey Street, Watford, made her first aerial descent to begin a career which gave her nationwide fame as a daring parachutist.

Recounting these experiences to an “Observer” reporter, Mrs Hay said the most terrifying part of her first jump was landing among a herd of cows.

“I was never so frightened in my life,” she added. “The dangers of dropping 9,000 feet through the air seemed nothing to what might happen to me if those cows got overplayful. I was quite relieved when the people who came running forward to congratulate me drove the cows away.”

Mrs Hay made this descent over a field in Harrow, in aid of the funds of a local hospital. Her brother, an expert parachutist, had taught her all he could on the ground about parachuting, but when the great day came for her first jump, she found that balloons, the only aerial conveyance from which parachutes could be used in those days, would only take one person.

She would have to make her first parachute jump unaided and alone!

“Nevertheless, I did not think about nervousness when I stepped into the gondola,” confided Mrs Hay. “I simply said to myself that if my brother could do it, so could I.

“When the balloon reached an altitude of 9,000 feet it was no good feeling nervous. There was nothing for it but to make the jump. I swung over the side of the gondola and let go. After tumbling down for a few seconds I pulled the ring and the parachute opened. There was a crowd of six or seven thousand people watching me from the ground, but I think I had the greater thrill looking down at them and the enchanting panorama below.”

“Since that time Mrs Hay has made more than a score of descents. Demands for her services came from promoters of charity fetes and galas all over Britain. Several of her displays were given at Bank Holiday fetes held at the West Herts Ground, in aid of Watford and District Hospitals.

“Mrs Hay’s descents were not always attended by a safe landing. On several occasions she had narrow escapes from death. She often landed on roofs, where her parachute usually tangled itself round the chimney pots, while on one occasion she came down in the middle of the River Wye.

“Her worst fright was alighting on a railway track at Barking in front of an approaching railway train. Fortunately the driver saw her plight and stopped in time.

“Sometimes when there was a lot of wind about I used to get a buffeting,” said Mrs Hay. “I weighed only nine stone – much less than the average male parachutist – and experts used to say they wondered that I ever came down at all. Sometimes my descents would take more than 20 minutes, which is quite a long time for a drop of 9,000 feet.”

“Mrs Hay was married in 1907, but marriage did not put an end to her parachuting activities. She continued giving breath-taking displays until after her fourth child was born. She is now 65.”

That’s how it was in 1944. A second piece, published a few years later, tells a similar story (although gives Mrs Hay’s maiden name as ‘Florence Lusby’ rather than ‘Frisby’ – perhaps someone out there knows which is correct?)

Other details in this second piece are essentially the same, so it may well have also been published in the Watford Observer, although I haven’t been able to find it in the archive, so apologies if not.

In it, Mrs Hay confesses that despite such a wide experience of ballooning and parachuting, she’d never been up in a plane.

“I never had the opportunity but I wish I had,” she’s quoted as saying.

She was clearly a remarkable woman, a pioneer in her chosen field, but there are many gaps in her life story. Sadly neither she nor her daughter – Pauline’s mother – are still with us. But if anyone else out there can tell us any more, please get in touch.

Joseph van Fleet was a professional balloonist who worked with female assistants, including Florence Hay, which may explain why she took the professional name “Miss Fleet”. But were they related? It’s thought Professor Fleet may have been Florence Hay’s cousin. But does anyone know for sure? Please write and let us know.

ONLINE TOMORROW: Graham Taylor pictured pulling the first pint at the Red Lion in 1980.

These stories formed part of the Nostalgia column first published in the Watford Observer on October 11, 2013. The next Nostalgia column – with a search for a missing best man and pictures from a Pro-Am golf tournament in Bushey in 1969 starring Bruce Forsyth and Sean Connery among others – can be found in tomorrow’s Watford Observer (dated October 18, 2013) or read online here from 4pm next Thursday.

If you have anything to add – or would like to tell us anything you think our readers may enjoy about Watford’s history – we are always pleased to hear from you. Contact Nostalgia, by clicking here watfordnostalgia@london.newsquest.co.uk