Fritillaries
The Fritillaries was the unofficial name adopted by the women who formed the vast majority of Elland’s earliest cadre of military pilots, as heavier-than-air craft became a viable option for armed forces across Messenia during the 1920s. In a society where women have frequently been pushed to the sidelines in careers other than within the female-dominated Cairan faith, these brave pioneers remain significant within Elland as icons of female equality in the modern day.
Origins
For a number of largely historical reasons, Elland’s army had been overwhelmingly male for most of its existence; however, concerns over the build strength and reliability of the first combat and reconnaissance craft brought into service by the new air arm prompted military chiefs to canvass enquiries from women to be trained as pilots, on the basis that their usually smaller size and lesser body weight would not overload the planes’ lift capacity. Perhaps unsurprisingly in a country where the nobility still held substantial influence, the selection board restricted its examination of prospective candidates to the daughters of well-born families, ostensibly on the grounds that such women would be reasonably well-educated and would more quickly acquire familiarity with the new machines.
An initial group of six pilot trainees – who would become celebrated as the “Sweet Six” – was brought together in Metrial 1923; although they had not been through the army’s customary spell of basic training – for which women could not, in any event, be accommodated at that time – five of the six were given the initial rank of flying officer. The sixth, Geraldine Wellbeloved, had already acquired some flight experience alongside her brother, the pioneer aircraft engineer William Wellbeloved, and was in consequence given the slightly higher rank of flight lieutenant. In the natural manner of a newly-formed corps, all six would rapidly advance in rank as their initial experience qualified them to train those who followed in their footsteps.
The nickname Fritillaries was taken from the name given to various species of butterfly; one particular group native to Elland is usually orange in colour, with black markings on the underside of the wings – a similar colour scheme to the livery of the early army planes, given the orange, black and white colours of the flag of Elland.1 Credit for its origination is usually given to Dorothy Baillieu-Vass, the then 20-year-old granddaughter of Albert Baillieu-Vass, 7th Duke of Carling and a former Lord Chancellor; the formidable “Dotty” would in time become Elland’s most experienced female pilot, with almost 20,000 flying hours logged to her name before failing health finally grounded her in 1977.
Queens of the air
Although the idea of personal publicity for the Fritillaries initially shocked and horrified some of the army top brass, the notion held a certain appeal, given that the whole concept of an army air force was very much a leap in the dark for the Ellish military, requiring as much support as possible both within and outside the service. The young women acquired a certain celebrity across the country, particularly among their less exalted sisters, who saw them as objects of fascination, sometimes jealousy and, very often, inspiration. They nonetheless proved that they were worthy of respect as pilots and as combatants, despite the genuine fears by their superiors that it was inappropriate to put women in positions where their lives were in danger. A particular factor in this was the challenge race in 1925 in which Flight Lt. Caroline Carstairs defeated the prominent civilian aviator and emerging motor magnate Percival Ware-Armitage in a run between Herford, in Elland’s south-eastern corner, and the north-eastern border town of Gannsford. (A persistent story holds that Ware-Armitage was so impressed by Carstairs’ skills in the air that this celebrated ladies’ man proposed marriage to her once they were both back on the ground. She was sufficiently offended by the idea that she felled him with a knee to the testicles.)
Grounded
However, for all their successes and the lustre which attached to the Fritillaries, their heyday was short-lived. Construction of military aircraft went through quite rapid development during the 1920s; the question marks over performance and structural strength were largely lifted by 1928, removing the weight and height restrictions which had caused the service to induct women as pilots. With these removed, the air arm began to gravitate towards the male-dominated composition typical of the rest of the service; although women were never formally debarred from service, there seems to have been an unspoken decision by the Ellish general staff to allow their distaff component to fall away from natural wastage. Certainly, as female pilots gradually resigned from the service, frequently on grounds of pregnancy, there was no great rush to recruit others as their replacements. Many of them – and all but Livia Tredaway of the original Sweet Six – continued to fly as civilians (Wellbeloved would later hold the distance record by a female pilot with a flight from Etherley to Tonsour in 1933), but the glory days of female aviators in Elland were at an end.
The Sweet Six (with call-signs)
- Dorothy “Dotty” Baillieu-Vass (1903-1988)
- Caroline “Bunty” Carstairs (1902-1987)
- Harriet “Haitch” Daubrey (1900-1998)
- Evelyne “Bossy-Pants” Southcott (1902-1980)
- Livia “Ginger” Tredaway (1902-1935)
- Geraldine “Snooks” Wellbeloved (1897-1949)