Biography & True Story Books:

Starways: When Liverpool Ruled the Skies

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Description

Starways was the airline the world forgot. Now, 50 years on, a former air hostess tells her story. Patsy Leigh left school at just thirteen but that has not deterred her from writing this remarkable book: a vivid, affectionate and humorous account of her years flying high with Starways, Liverpool's much-loved former airline from the 1960s. Now in her early 80s, Patsy recalls the bad times as well as the good; the poor pay and the long hours; the turbulence on the ground as well as in the air. But there was fun aplenty too, as she mingled with the stars. We learn how Ken Dodd used to pull her leg and that Paul McCartney howled with laughter when Patsy admitted never listening to the Beatles. She kept her cool when a passenger died mid-flight alongside his frantic mistress. There was the time an engine leaked oil, forcing a landing in Nigeria just as independence celebrations were turning nasty. And let's not forget the skirmishes with Customs officers who didn't take kindly to spirits and cigarettes being smuggled beneath hats and uniforms. Captain George Leigh, pilot and senior manager, often took a dim view of his air hostesses' antics. At times, they feared for their jobs. But Patsy need not have worried. She didn't realise it, but Captain Leigh was starting to fall in love with her . . . The books is illustrated throughout with some two dozen archive photographs which Patsy kept from her time with Starways.

Author Biography:

Patsy Leigh was an Air Hostess for Liverpool's Starways airline from 1960 to 1964. Patricia Collins, as she was then, was born in 1934 in Wormley, Hertfordshire, and grew up during the Second World War. Her father died in 1943 and her mother, aged 27, was left with four children and a rented house which they had to leave. Patsy attended eleven schools from five years old until one month before her 14th birthday, after which her mother needed her to work. Patsy worked in Garners, a London restaurant, for almost seven years, before training with Revlon as a manicurist and beautician, working at hairdresser Henry da Costa's salon, Number 9, New Bond Street, and next door to a very young and broke Vidal Sassoon. After that she moved to Norton's in Duke Street, St James, where her clients included actors Sir Alec Guinness, Trevor Howard and Leo Genn. It was in part due to Patsy's brother-in-law Laird Kennedy, himself a pilot, that she first took to the skies. Patsy now lives in West Sussex.
Release date NZ
July 15th, 2016
Author
Contributor
  • Edited by Robert Davies
Pages
150
Audience
  • General (US: Trade)
Illustrations
24 black and white photographs
Dimensions
140x216x8
ISBN-13
9780995499607
Product ID
25655996

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