Does anyone have a definitive reference to the percentage of female pilots before the second world war? I ask because I remember reading somewhere that it was a much higher percentage than now.
My mother, now in her 80's, still bemoans the fact that her brother was taken to see Alan Cobham's Flying Circus but despite all her begging, her father wouldn't take her along too. She and her brother were fascinated by flying and the exploits of Amy Johnson et al. She would have loved to learn to fly but never felt she had the opportunity. Her brother did learn, paid for by the RAF, but unfortunately his Lancaster was shot down in 1944.
Unusually, my mother enjoys flying in really rough weather; the worse the turbulence and the weather, the more she enjoys it. She is very frail now, but still wants to go flying.