Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Aug 4, 2009 17:58:01 GMT 12
Aviator’s nieces reminisce together in same home
By DON FARMER - Wairarapa Times-Age | Tuesday, 04 August 2009
Cousins Nancy Duffy, left, and Mavis Thomas reunited
as residents of Wharekaka Home, Martinborough,
have plenty of family history to talk about.
The memory of a famous New Zealand aviator is kept alive every day in Martinborough when his two nieces get together over tea and biscuits.
First cousins Nancy Duffy, 93, and Mavis Thomas, 92, are descendants of Captain George Hood and despite many decades of following their own paths in life have now become reunited as residents of Wharekaka Home for the Elderly in Martinborough.
Hood wrote his name into pioneer aviation history by attempting an ill-fated monoplane crossing of the Tasman Sea from Australia to New Zealand in partnership with Lieutenant John ( Scotty) Moncrieff on January 10, 1928.
They left Sydney amid huge public expectation and excitement and a massive crowd of well-wishers gathered at Trentham Racecourse to welcome them on a landing that was never to be.
Somewhere in between things went horribly wrong and the small plane obviously came to grief.
Hood and Moncrieff were lost to history and no part of the plane has ever been found despite all sorts of theories, including it being lost at sea or over land perhaps in the Ruahine Ranges or the Tararuas between Mount Holdsworth and Mitre Peak
Nancy Duffy's father Frank was George Hood's brother and Mavis Thomas' mother was Olive Hood, the aviator's sister.
Both nonagenarians remember their Uncle George well, especially his great love of fishing and floundering in the lower valley and the Masterton taxi he made his living by driving, having returned from active service in World War I.
They also remember the fateful day of the flight and how family members gathered at the Hood home in Masterton awaiting news of the men's successful landing.
Nancy said she was 12 and Mavis 11.
"We waited and waited and waited, expecting the phone to go with that old ring - two shorts and a long, but the call never came."
Despite the years of sadness after their uncle's mysterious disappearance, and decades of not knowing what became of the men, Mavis said they no longer wanted to know what had happened.
"We don't want to know, not after so long.
"Our uncle just has a nice place in our memory."
And they differ on what they think happened to the flight, anyway.
Mavis thinks Hood and Moncrieff were lost at sea whereas Nancy favours the theory the plane made it over land and "went down in the Ureweras".
The loss of the monoplane never frightened either Mavis or Nancy when it came to flying as both have tripped about the world and Nancy's nephew Richard Hood was a champion aerobatics pilot and is now a commercial pilot with Air New Zealand.
www.times-age.co.nz/local/news/aviators-nieces-reminisce-together-in-same-home/3902292/
