THIS photograph is of Amy Johnson and her husband Jim Mollison, both famous British pilots, being greeted by large crowds in the Grandstand of Pontypool Park, where they had flown in to attend the Pontypool Hospital Carnival in the mid 1930s.

Amy Johnson CBE was born on July 1, 1903, in Yorkshire and became Britain’s most spearheading female pilot, initially becoming famous through her solo flight from London to Darwin, Australia in 1930.

She left Croydon Airport nearly 89 years ago (on May 5, 1930) in a second-hand Gipsy Moth aeroplane called Jason and landed in Australia on May 24 to be greeted by huge crowds of well-wishers.

In 1932, after a whirlwind romance, She married Scottish pilot Jim Mollison and they became known as the ‘flying sweethearts’.

They created a stir wherever they flew and the ‘sweethearts’ carried on flying and setting records.

Amy set the record for solo flight from London to Cape Town in 1932 and the following year the Mollisons flew together across the Atlantic, establishing a world record and becoming like pop stars in America where they were given a ‘ticker tape parade’ in New York.

At the outbreak of WWII, Amy joined the Air Transport Auxiliary but was killed in January 1941 when she bailed out of her aircraft over Herne Bay, off the coast of Kent.

The fact that both Amy and Jim Mollison flew into Pontypool Park and became guests of honour at the Pontypool Hospital Carnival shows how prestigious and exciting the annual event had become since the Park was purchased for the community by the Urban District Councils of Pontypool, Panteg and Abersychan in 1922.

Nostalgia is provided by Torfaen Museum.