Nearly blind Gloucestershire wingwalking nan, 97, says 'last thing I want is to lie in bed'
Summary
Betty Bromage, a 97-year-old grandmother and Guinness World Record holder for the oldest female wing walker, is preparing for her sixth wing walk this August. Having discovered the adrenaline-fueled hobby at age 87, she has no intention of stopping.
Details
Bromage, a resident at Pegasus Homes’ Latheram House in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, first tried wing walking – the act of moving along an aircraft’s wings during flight – in 2016. She turned to extreme sports after moving into an assisted living facility following the 2004 death of Donald, her husband of 51 years.
The facility’s fully catered lifestyle removed the burden of household chores, allowing her the freedom to pursue new challenges. Since that first experience, she has completed four additional wing walks, including one to mark her 90th birthday. Her adventurous spirit has also led her to tackle a zip wire in Snowdonia and a 161-foot abseil down Cheltenham’s Eagle Star building.
She now aims to surpass the World Record she set at age 93 with her upcoming summer flight. “I remember, donkey years ago, seeing a Crunchie bar advert, and there was a lady standing on the top of a plane,” Betty told PA Real Life, recalling a 1991 Cadbury’s advert. “I moved to a (retirement) house, where they do all the cooking for you and everything, and I thought: ‘What I’m going to do?
There’s no shopping, there’s no chores’. “I was 87 then, and then that came to me – I thought I’d like to have a go at (wing walking). My daughter-in-law took me to the airfield at Staverton (now Gloucestershire Airport), and I did my first flight there when I was 87.” By the following year, Betty decided that a straight-forward wing walk was “a bit boring”, and asked the pilot to do “something different”.
She said: “He did what they called a figure of eight, and I thought, oh gosh, we’re getting a bit near the ground.” During the Covid-19 pandemic, at age 90, Betty completed her third wing walk. She did it to raise funds for a summer house in her care home’s garden, providing a shared space for residents during lockdown. Betty’s current penchant for extreme sports is a surprising departure from her younger self.
She laughingly describes having been a “townie” with no interest in the countryside. At one time, she quipped, she barely knew what a cow looked like. It was only later in life that she felt the urge to seek out adrenaline-fueled experiences, a shift inspired, in part, by her experience with disability.
In her 60s, Betty was left paralysed for three months after a spinal injury, explaining: “I had to challenge myself, then, to walk and push myself. It’s what I want, because I can’t do so many things,” she added, referring to her adventurous hobbies. “I’m nearly blind, so that doesn’t help, and I can’t read – messages come on my phone, and I can’t see who they are from.
Report source: Gloucestershire Live