WOMAN'S OWN. TOWER HOUSE, LONDON. W.C.2, APRIL 4th 1959
Between Friends
Jack and Elizabeth found romance in the sky
Between Friends
Jack and Elizabeth found romance in the sky
THE doctor's voice was quiet and soothing, but his words brought despair to the Fair haired girl in a hospital bed. "You'll never fly again," she was told. Yet, in that same moment, she found the courage and determination to prove the verdict wrong.
Elizabeth Overbury's refusal to accept defeat was later to save the career of her test pilot husband, Jack. For he, too, was destined to hear those same words; and it was Elizabeth who helped him defy them.
In the cosy living room of the Overbury's sixteenth century cottage on the Isle of Wight, Elizabeth who is a qualified flying instructor told us the story of their duel with fate.
"Flying is our life," she said, simply. "I started when I was 18 and did spare- time jobs to pay for it. Then, two years ago, I was involved in a car crash. I had serious head injuries, and they told me I could never hope to fly again."
But Elizabeth refused to believe them. "1 will fly," she decided. Six months later, restored to health, she was back in the cockpit with Jack beside her, high above the English earth which had threatened to hold her prisoner. Her courage had given her wings again and a flying romance with one of Britain's top test pilots.
It was a year after their marriage that Jack, who has flown some of this country's fastest and most secret planes, crashed at a local flying display. Ironically, he was flying a light aircraft not much faster than a sports car when he failed to pull out of a low dive.
Jack was carried from the wreckage of the plane with both his legs and his jaw broken. In hospital, doctors warned him that his flying days might be ended. But Elizabeth, remembering her own accident, encouraged her husband in his fight for fitness.
"I knew Jack was going to be all right,'" she said, a quick smile lighting up her face. "And he was."
Yes, four operations and seven months later he was. A few weeks ago Jack Overbury said goodbye to his walking sticks; and soon after he was back in the air, flying a 500 m.h.p jet fighter.
All the while I was in hospital," he said, "I kept remembering my mother's advice to me when I was a boy: 'Never run away from anything and always take advantage of any new experience.' Those words helped, and so did Elizabeth. She was wonderful. She just wouldn't let me believe that I'd never fly again."
S0 Jack is airborne once more, flying as fast as sound miles above England's peaceful fields, breathing the dangerous excitement of the job he loves.
For Jack and Elizabeth flying is their world, a world which has twice fallen apart, but which they have twice rebuilt. And our picture of them, taken just after one of their recent flights, catches the happiness they share.
Standing unobtrusively on a window ledge in the Overbury's mellow walled cottage was, we' noticed, a dramatic picture of a jet plane streaking through dark clouds. It seemed to us to echo their own shining spirit of determination. It was signed: "Best wishes-Neville Duke."
We, like this famous test pilot, say "Good luck" to this wonderful husband and wife team whose inspiring story is a real romance of the skies.
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Cover by Camera Clix ................................... © George Newnes Limited, 1959
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Fry’s feast from the fabulous East
More than 2oz for 6d (about 7 cents)? ALSO 4 '' SIZE
Fry’s feast from the fabulous East
More than 2oz for 6d (about 7 cents)? ALSO 4 '' SIZE
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