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A selection of messages from our readers across the globe

Glenapp Castle, Ayrshire

MORE THAN A FLIGHT OF FANCY

My wife Blanche and I enjoyed your review of Glenapp Castle as we have had the pleasure of spending a night there several years ago when it was owned by the McMillan family. It is a charming castle. I don’t remember seeing the Churchill portrait – possibly it is an addition of Paul and Poppy Szkiler, the present owners.

Jack Hunter’s 2008 book A Flight Too Far, The story of Elsie Mackay of Glenapp, gives more detail on Elsie’s remarkable 1928 failed attempt to fl y westward non-stop from England to Long Island, USA, against the prevailing winds in a single engine plane.

Elsie’s double ambition was to make the more di cult fi rst east-west solo crossing of the Atlantic by plane and the fi rst either way by a woman. She realised she needed help and eventually hired a very experienced ex-RAF pilot Captain W G R Hinchli e, who had lost his left eye in a wartime fl ying accident.

Hinchli e would fl y the plane with Elsie as co-pilot. The two took o in 1928 and were never seen again. Not surprising, because in the previous seven months seven fl iers, including two women, had died attempting the east-west crossing. In 1927, American Charles Lindbergh had been the fi rst person to make a solo, non-stop fl ight by plane across the Atlantic. Charles fl ew west-east. John B McMillan, FSA Scot, by email

The Editor, Scotland, 2 Jubilee Place, London, SW3 3TQ editor@scotlandmag.com facebook.com/ScotlandMagazine @Scotland_Mag @scotlandmagazine

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OPENING OUR EYES

I want to thank Vaishnavi Ramu for the lovely and informative article Born and Bred in Issue 120 of Scotland. Not being from Scotland, I didn’t make the connection with its diversity and the British Empire and colonialism, but, of course, I should have. Thanks for running this article. Robin Wallace, by email

RESPECT YOUR ELDERS

Thank you for a brilliant magazine. I am well-entertained each issue and learn a lot about beautiful Scotland. However, in the latest issue March/April 2022 (121) I read that Campbeltown Picture House is Scotland’s oldest surviving purposebuilt cinema, but isn’t it The Hippodrome Cinema in Bo’ness? Gazelle Buchholtz, by email

EDITOR REPLIES:

You are quite right Gazelle, though the Campbeltown Picture House is one of the oldest, opening in 1913, it was predated by The Hippodrome in Bo’ness, which opened in 1912. Sorry, our mistake.