On this day Amy Johnson went to a watery grave

Local 'lass' and world famous aviator Amy Johnson died January 5, 1941.

One of Kingston-Upon-Hull's most notable citizens Amy Johnson was a famous name around the city when this writer was a child in the fifties.

Amy had inspired an earlier generation by her aviation skills at a time when women tended to be expected to stay home or only participate in mundane work; unless that is they came from the higher classes of British society or it was wartime.

Not our Amy - in 1930 she became the first woman to fly solo to Australia, a journey of some 11,000 miles.

Johnson even had a song penned for her by Jack Hylton and His Orchestra and titled 'Amy Wonderful Amy.

Some memorabilia relating to Ms Johnson is on permanent display at Sewerby Hall and Park at Sewerby on the outskirts of Yorkshire seaside town Bridlington.

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But Hull is planning to include Amy in its year in the spotlight when it becomes the country's City of Culture for 2017.

An Amy Johnson Festival could be one of the city's highlights but maybe not.

Those plans took a battering this week when the Science Museum in London refused an application from Hull Museums to house Johnson's De Haviland Gypsy Moth named Jason.

The plane will stay put in London.

Hull's museums already have displays which include buses from a bygone era, old chemist shops, early ice-cream vans and more; Amy Johnson's plane Jason would be the icing on the cake, even if it was a temporary move.

When Amy died as her plane crashed into the Thames in January 1941 her body was never recovered and the events surrounding her death remain a mystery.

Tuesday the Hull Daily Mail reports there will be "a major month-long festival in Hull later this year celebrating her life and record-breaking flights" but unless the Science Museum has a re-think without her plane.

Local historian Alec Gill who has written a new book about Amy, says;

he is convinced details of her death were deliberately suppressed because they were too shocking for people to know in wartime Britain. "The death of Amy Johnson is shrouded in as much mystery as her childhood origins in Hull's fishing community," he said.

"She deliberately lied about her place of birth, concealed her true fishing family roots, and, when the sea claimed her life, the world was left never knowing why or how she died. "Yet, ironically, in the moment of her death in the Thames, it was a Hull trawlerman who desperately tried to save her life.

"He was Harry Gould, a Royal Navy Reserve, serving aboard HMS Haslemere of the escort convoy East 21. "This ship should have gone down in history as the vessel that saved her life.
"Instead, historians are now beginning to conclude that the propellers of the Haslemere killed her."This is the primary reason why her body has never been found.

You can read the full mail report here

And find the new Alec Gill book at Amazon here - AMY JOHNSON: Hessle Road Tomboy - Born and Bred, Dread and Fled (HESSLE ROAD: Stories about Hull's Fishing Community and Arctic Trawling Heritage (England) Book 4) [Print Replica] Kindle Edition