Margaret Gore

Margaret Wyndham Gore (24 January 1913 – 20 August 1993), known as Margot Gore, was a leading British aviator and osteopath. She was appointed MBE for her service as a commander in the Air Transport Auxiliary. She may be the first woman to pilot a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. After the war she trained to be an osteopath rising to teach and then sit on the board of the British School of Osteopathy. Early life Gore was born in Worthing in 1913, and her loves were medicine and flying. Her family moved to Ireland, where she spent her childhood running free with the local hunt and obtaining little formal education. A family maid secretly took her to view Michael Collins' body when he was laid out. When she was sixteen her family moved back to England, and at Bedford High School for Girls she realised her lack of qualifications. Flying career and Air Transport Auxiliary She wanted a career in medicine but lacked the academic background. She worked as a secretary at Smithfield Market to raise money for flying lessons, and she later undertook subsidised lessons with the Civil Air Guard in 1938 as war became inevitable. She was taught to fly by Gabrielle Patterson, who encouraged her to become a qualified instructor in 1939. In 1940 the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) agreed to take women pilots and recruits were gathered by Pauline Gower with an initial eight women pilots. The ATA's role was to deliver aircraft and the De Havilland Tiger Moth was the first to be entrusted to the ATA's new women pilots at Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Gore was not amongst the first eight but she was the tenth and in the next batch to be recruited in June 1940.