Beryl Markham
Beryl Markham: A Life of Adventure and Resilience
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Full Name and Common Aliases
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Mary Virginia "Beryl" Markham was a British-Kenyan aviator, author, and adventurer. She is often referred to as Beryl or Mary.
Birth and Death Dates
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Born: October 26, 1902, in Nairobi, Kenya (then British East Africa)
Died: August 1, 1986, in Glen Ellen, California
Nationality and Profession(s)
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Markham held dual citizenship of the United Kingdom and Kenya. She was an aviator by profession, but also a writer and explorer.
Early Life and Background
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Beryl Markham's early life was marked by adventure and hardship. Her father, Charles Phillips, was a stonemason who moved to British East Africa (now Kenya) in 1895. Beryl was born on the family farm, which her parents struggled to maintain due to financial difficulties. The family was plagued by poverty, illness, and personal struggles.
In 1912, Beryl's father abandoned the family, leaving them with little support. Her mother, Isobel, took over the management of the farm, while Beryl attended school in Nairobi. Despite these challenges, Markham developed a strong sense of independence and resilience from an early age.
Major Accomplishments
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Markham's accomplishments are numerous and remarkable:
She became one of the first African women to earn a pilot's license in 1936.
In 1937, she completed a solo flight from England to Africa, becoming the first woman to fly non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean from east to west.
Her novel, West with the Night, published in 1942, is a memoir of her experiences as a pilot and explorer.Notable Works or Actions
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Markham's writing career spanned several decades. In addition to West with the Night, she wrote several other books, including Sally at Our Side (1933) and Each Peach Pear Plum (1980). Her novels often explored themes of love, loss, and survival in the African wilderness.
Markham's personal life was also marked by tragedy. In 1949, her son, Perceval, drowned while swimming off the coast of Kenya. This event led Markham to abandon her family and move to the United States, where she lived under an assumed name for many years.
Impact and Legacy
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Beryl Markham's life has left a lasting impact on literature and aviation:
Her memoir, West with the Night, is considered a classic of adventure writing.
Markham's pioneering work as a female pilot helped pave the way for future generations of women in aviation.
Her novels continue to be widely read and studied today.
Why They Are Widely Quoted or Remembered
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Markham's quotes and stories are remembered because they capture the essence of her adventurous spirit and resilience:
> "To fly is to be free, yet not to know how close you are to death." - Beryl Markham
Her life was marked by both triumph and tragedy. Despite facing numerous challenges, she remained steadfast in her pursuit of adventure and self-discovery.
Beryl Markham's legacy continues to inspire readers and writers around the world. Her story serves as a testament to the human spirit's capacity for courage, perseverance, and exploration.
Quotes by Beryl Markham
Each humid, tropic day is stillborn, and does not breathe, however lustily pregnant the night that gave it birth.
Before such a flight it was the anticipation of aloneness more than any thought of physical danger that used to haunt me a little and make me wonder sometimes if mine was the the most wonderful job in the world after all. I always concluded that lonely or not it was still free from the curse of boredom.
It is when we presume to intimacy, having been granted only tolerance, that the harsh stick falls across our impudent knuckles and we rub the pain, staring upward, startled by our ignorance.
The hours that made them were good, and so were the moments that made the hours. I have had responsibilities and work, dangers and pleasure, good friends, and a world without walls to live in. These things I still have, I remind myself – and shall have until I leave them.
Names are keys that open corridors no longer fresh in the mind, but nonetheless familiar in the heart.
Like night, the desert is boundless, comfortless and infinite. Like night, it intrigues the mind and leads it to futility. When you have flown halfway across a desert, you experience the desperation of a sleepless man waiting for dawn which only comes when the importance of it’s coming is lost. You fly forever, weary with an invariable scene, and when you are at last released from its monotony, you remember nothing of it because there was nothing there.
I am incapable of a profound remark on the workings of Destiny. It seems to get up early and go to bed very late, and it acts most generously toward the people who nudge it off the road whenever they meet it.
