28/12/2022
Such sad news to see that Carolyn Grace was Killed in a car crash in Australia on 2nd December 2022.
Carolyn took on operating and flying the Grace Spitfire, ML407, after her husband Nick Grace was killed in a car accident in 1988.
Nick, an engineer as well as a pilot, rebuilt the Spitfire over five years and first flew it in 1985. ML407 is an important aircraft, flying more than 176 operational missions during WWII including combat on D-Day over Normandy.
She was a hell of a woman; and someone I admired greatly. By all accounts, a “Spitfire” by nature.
This poem below seems apt.
“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air…
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew –
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.”
(JGM)
