Around the world with Richarda Morrow-Tait

2024 is the 75th anniversary of the first woman to fly around the world but do you know her name? A blue plaque is being unveiled to commemorate her flight later this year at Marshall’s Airfield.

Richarda Morrow-Tait (1923 – 1982) known as ‘Dikki’, was a local girl who was inspired to learn to fly whilst at school in Cambridge. After only 80 hours of flying experience at Marshall’s Airfield on Newmarket Road she took off from Cambridge in her Percival Proctor Mark IV called ‘Thursday’s Child’ with her navigator, Michael Townsend. After many adventures in many countries including a crash in Canada she returned a year and one day later in her second plane a BT-13 Vultee Valiant called ‘Next Thursday’s Child’. Come and hear Dikki’s story – her connections to Ickleton and Cambridge, her flight around the world, and how she still provides inspiration for female pilots today.

Emma Easterbrook grew up and was educated in and around Cambridge. She was a local in the Mill Road area for nearly 20 years and has recently moved back to the villages. She has had a life-long interest in history and was inspired by a Facebook post by Mike Petty, creator of the Cambridgeshire Collection, to re-discover the story behind the first round the world flight by a woman, and to campaign for a blue plaque to celebrate that achievement.