{"id":4930,"date":"2022-03-19T17:53:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-19T16:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sigbi.org\/thames-valley\/?p=4930"},"modified":"2026-02-17T15:56:04","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T15:56:04","slug":"club-meeting-march-2022-speaker-richard-poad-grandma-flew-spitfires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sigbi.org\/thames-valley\/2022\/03\/19\/club-meeting-march-2022-speaker-richard-poad-grandma-flew-spitfires\/","title":{"rendered":"Club Meeting March 2022:  speaker Richard Poad &#8220;Grandma Flew Spitfires&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Our speaker at our March 2022 meeting was Richard Poad, from Maidenhead Heritage Centre.\u00a0\u00a0 He gave a very informative talk on the women and men involved with the Air Transport Auxiliary in WW2 entitled \u2018Grandma Flew Spitfires\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 We were surprised to find out the there were 2 air pool stations totally run by women (at Hamble and Cosford).\u00a0\u00a0 Out of approximately 1255 flying staff there were only 168 women (ratio of 1:6).\u00a0\u00a0 By September 1939 there were over 1000 men signed up for the ATA, but the first women were only signed up in January 1940.<\/p>\n<p>It was not until 2008 that the ATA personnel were given a commemorative badge. They couldn\u2019t be given a medal as they were civilians and not in the air force.<\/p>\n<p>For more information, visit the Maidenhead Heritage Centre website or go straight to the Air Transport Auxiliary website.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/maidenheadheritage.org.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/maidenheadheritage.org.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/atamuseum.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/atamuseum.org\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our speaker at our March 2022 meeting was Richard Poad, from Maidenhead Heritage Centre.\u00a0\u00a0 He&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":567,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-club-archive"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Club Meeting March 2022: speaker Richard Poad &quot;Grandma Flew Spitfires&quot; | News | Blog | Events | SI Thames Valley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"SI Thames Valley : Blog &amp; News : Club Meeting March 2022: speaker Richard Poad &quot;Grandma Flew Spitfires&quot; : Keep up to date with the latest news, articles and events from the Soroptimists of SI Thames Valley . 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