Actress gets off to flying start

The run-up to the Biggin Hill International Air Fair gave actress Eleanor Moriarty the chance to seek inspiration behind the controls of a Gypsy Moth aircraft before the opening performance of Lone Flyer in Croydon.

Eleanor, 26, plays the part of the legendary aviatrix Amy Johnson - who shot to fame in 1930 when, aged 27, she became the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia. The 19-day journey in a de Havilland Gypsy Moth started from the old Croydon airport.

Her trip in the biplane "Jason", now preserved in the Science Museum, covered unmapped oceans, jungles and deserts and transformed Johnson into a national hero.

She later married fellow pilot Jim Mollison and the couple became known throughout Britain as "the flying sweethearts".

Johnson disappeared without trace in January 1940, while flying with the Air Transport Auxiliary. The fact that her body was never found, coupled with rumours that she had been carrying a German passenger, aroused suspicions that she may have been working as a Nazi spy.

The first Gypsy Moth flew in 1926, and the play, which opens at the Warehouse Theatre, has been produced to coincide with its 75th anniversary. Featuring only two actors - Miss Moriarty and John Sackville - the play tells the story of Johnson's life through her memories and experiences, which are related from a mock-up of the aircraft in which she went missing.

Moriarty said: "Just sitting in the cockpit of the Gypsy Moth has certainly brought to life how extraordinarily brave Amy Johnson must have been to make the flight, in a time when aviation was barely out of the experimental stage and was very much a male-dominated world.

"What struck me most was how incredibly lonely she must have been, flying for hour after hour over strange continents with only the roar of the engine for company. A crucial element of the play centres on the loneliness and fear she must have felt when her aircraft mysteriously went missing over the Thames Estuary 60 years ago."

Tickets for Lone Flyer are available from The Warehouse Theatre on 020 8680 4060.