THE first time Mary Ellis, then Wilkins, saw the sleek small fighter aircraft parked in the distance on a runway, she fell in love. Perhaps it sounded like nonsense, to fall for an aeroplane. But when she came to make her first flight in one, as a 25-year-old pilot ferrying aircraft between Britain’s airfields in the second world war, she knew for certain.

The date was October 15th 1942. From the moment she picked up her chitty in the morning, with the list of planes she had to deliver that day, her heart was pounding with joy. As she climbed in, just the ticket in her Air Transport Auxiliary uniform of dark navy slacks, fur-lined boots and navy jacket with golden wings, she caught a glimpse of her blonde curls in the Perspex canopy of the cockpit. She never wore a leather helmet; it didn’t do much for the hairstyle, and she was fond of fashion. But she had not forgotten lipstick and nail polish, because this was an assignation.

Inside the cockpit it was warm, snug and quiet. As she slowly commanded the propeller to turn, turn and spin fast, she felt the Spitfire respond to every move of hers. The thrust and virility she also felt, right through her bones, building to 2,400 revs per minute and a take-off speed of 150mph, came from the magnificent 12-cylinder Merlin engine, erupting like a symphony and blasting out a three-second show of flame. But the wonderful aircraft itself had become her outer layer, a dynamic metal sheath like the feathers on a hawk. The whole experience, she had to admit, was sexual and orgasmic, and like a dream. Who needed love, with all its tortures and entanglements, when there was this? From the age of three she had wanted her wings to grow so she could reach the shimmering sky. Now she had them she was free, full of adrenalin and purpose.

She had flown many kinds of planes since, at 15, she was allowed to skip hockey at her school in Burford and take flying lessons instead. Most of them were pretty little aircraft, such as Tiger Moths and Swallows. If women were to fly at all, an odd thought in itself, those seemed the right type. Though the shapely Spitfire was often seen as a lady’s plane, the notion of a girl at the controls of the sexiest thing going sent a shudder through commanding officers everywhere. The demands of war, the need to get fighter planes to the RAF boys as fast as possible, meant they just had to put up with it—even when this particular girl, all five feet two of her, was silly and romantic enough to write “Wilkins ATA” in the cockpit of one Spitfire, in the hope some handsome chap might get in touch.

The bigger the plane, the worse the prejudice. When she flew Wellington bombers, glorious aircraft, so reliable and well-mannered, some ground crews were flabbergasted she was the pilot. (This did not put her off, and she was training to fly four-engine Lancaster bombers when the war ended.) In the ATA itself, which took women from 1940, about 12% of the pilots were female, and not all ferry pools would accept them. The worst, she found, were RAF airfields, where the ground crews often ignored her and, if one wanted to spend a penny, one had to find a bush, as the loos were men-only. She learned early in the ATA not to drink too much tea before a flight—only afterwards, when she sometimes managed a quick bike ride home to her parents near the airfield at Brize Norton, for a cup and a spot of tennis. They never really knew what her job was.

At least after 1943 there was equal pay for men and women of the ATA, about £6 a week. For, after all, they faced the same dangers and had the same scrapes—flying, as they did, without radios, relying only on compasses and Bradshaw’s Railway Guides. She met anti-aircraft fire over Bournemouth, barrage balloons suddenly popping up, doodle bugs coming for her, and engine failure. Friends got killed. Each of those horrors she dealt with calmly; one didn’t get excited, just got on with the job. Besides, men did not own war; women knew about duty, too. It was terribly annoying when after one crash-landing she had to be rescued by men from a field, because she was besieged by curious cows.

All through, the Spitfire remained her soulmate. When in 1946 she flew one alone for the last time, she reflected that never again would young women have the chance to fly such a beautiful aircraft so often and so freely. Still in love with the fast and the furious, she joined the RAF for a time, flying Gloster Meteor jetfighters, and bought a gorgeous black Allard K1 sports car in which she whipped about the roads and won rallies. She took on the management of Sandown airport in the Isle of Wight, setting up a school there where women could learn to fly. Later she married Don Ellis, a gliding instructor, which brought happy years, though she never took to gliding. She missed engine power.

As the liveliest member of the shrinking band of ATA veterans, straight-backed and without a stick even at 100, she never missed a chance to wear her uniform, trim navy with its golden wings. And at 100 she also, for 15 minutes, took the controls of a Spitfire again. Another flew alongside as an escort of honour, and a co-pilot sat with her, but of course it would have been even more wizard without them. For in her dreams a feisty little Spitfire was always out on the horizon, waiting for her to climb in and become a bird again; away into the clouds, close and fast, on and on.