Beryl Markham | |
|---|---|
 Markham in 1936 | |
| Born | Beryl Clutterbuck 26 October 1902 Ashwell, Rutland, England |
| Died | 3 August 1986(1986-08-03) (aged 83) Nairobi, Kenya |
| Occupation | Writer, pilot, horse trainer |
| Notable works | West with the Night |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 1 |
Beryl Markham (bornClutterbuck; 26 October 1902 – 3 August 1986) was anaviator born in England (one of the firstbush pilots), adventurer, racehorse trainer and author. She was the first person to fly solo, non-stop across theAtlantic from Britain to North America. She wrote about her adventures in hermemoir,West with the Night. She lived for many years in Kenya, where she died.
Markham was born in the village ofAshwell, in the county ofRutland, England, the daughter of Charles Baldwin Clutterbuck, a horse trainer, and Clara Agnes (née Alexander) (1878–1952).[1] She had an older brother, Richard Alexander "Dickie" Clutterbuck (1900–1927).
When she was four years old, she moved with her father to Kenya, which was then colonialBritish East Africa. He built a horse racing farm inNjoro, near theGreat Rift Valley between theMau Escarpment and theRongai Valley. Markham spent an adventurous childhood learning, playing, and hunting with the local children of all races. On her family's farm, she developed her knowledge of and love for horses, establishing herself as a trainer at the age of 17, after her father left for Peru.[2]
She befriended the Danish writerKaren Blixen during the years that Blixen was managing her family's coffee farm in theNgong hills outsideNairobi. When Blixen's romantic connection with the hunter and pilotDenys Finch Hatton was winding down, Markham started her own affair with him. He invited her to tour game lands on what turned out to be his fatal flight, but Markham supposedly declined because of a premonition of her flight instructor, British pilotTom Campbell Black.[3]
Inspired and coached byTom Campbell Black, Markham learned to fly. She worked for some time as abush pilot, spotting game animals from the air and signalling their locations tosafaris on the ground.[2]: 166–168
Markham was married three times, taking the name Markham from her second husband, the wealthyMansfield Markham, with whom she had a son, Gervase.
In 1928, while pregnant with Gervase, she entered into an affair withPrince Henry, Duke of Gloucester – known informally as Harry – the son ofGeorge V, who became besotted with her during his trip to Kenya.[4] It is said that Beryl also simultaneously had an affair with Harry's older brother,Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) during this time.[5]
Returning to England, Harry installed Beryl as his mistress in theGrosvenor House Hotel, a few minutes' walk fromBuckingham Palace. George V attempted to end the affair by sending Harry on a royal visit to Japan, but the affair resumed on his return to England. Historian Jane Ridley notes that Beryl "was spotted running barefoot along the corridors of Buckingham Palace". Mansfield later threatened to divorce Beryl and cite Harry as aco-respondent.[5] Though Mansfield and his brother Charles were vociferously warned against "citing a prince of the blood in a divorce petition" byQueen Mary, the Palace agreed to pay up in the face of the brothers’ blackmail attempts. £15,000 was placed in a trust fund, providing Beryl with an annuity of £500 (around £32,000 in 2021).[5]
Beryl also had an affair withHubert Broad, who was later named by Mansfield Markham as a co-respondent in his 1937 divorce from Markham.[6] After her Atlantic crossing, she returned to be with Broad, who was also an influence in her flying career.
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In 1936 Markham made a solo flight across theAtlantic from England to North America.[2]: 166, 205 When she decided to make the Atlantic crossing, no pilot had flown non-stop from Europe toNew York. On 4 September 1936 she took off fromAbingdon in southern England; her intended destination wasFloyd Bennett Field inBrooklyn, New York, but after a 20-hour flight herPercival Vega GullVP-KCC namedThe Messenger, sufferedfuel starvation due to icing of the fuel tank vents, and she made a forced landing atBaleine Cove onCape Breton Island, Nova Scotia,Canada, making Markham the first person to fly from England to North America non-stop from east to west.[7][8]
Markham chronicled many of her adventures in her memoirWest with the Night, published in 1942. Despite strong reviews in the press, the book sold modestly, and then quickly went out of print.[9] After living for many years in the United States, Markham moved back to Kenya in 1952.
Markham's memoir lingered in obscurity until 1982, when California restaurateur George Gutekunst read a collection ofErnest Hemingway's letters,[10] including one in which Hemingway praised Markham's writing:
Did you read Beryl Markham's book,West with the Night? ... She has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer. I felt that I was simply a carpenter with words, picking up whatever was furnished on the job and nailing them together and sometimes making an okay pig pen. But this girl, who is to my knowledge very unpleasant and we might even say a high-grade bitch, can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers ... it really is a bloody wonderful book.
Intrigued, Gutekunst readWest with the Night and became so enamoured of Markham's prose that he helped persuade a California publisher,North Point Press, to re-issue the book in 1983. The re-release of the book led to praise for the 80-year-old Markham as a great author as well as flyer.[10]
When found in Kenya by AP East Africa correspondent Barry Shlachter, Markham was living in poverty. She had recently been badly beaten during a burglary at her house near the Nairobi racetrack, where she still trained thoroughbreds.[11] The success of the re-issue ofWest with the Night provided enough income for Markham to finish her life in relative comfort. Earlier, she had been supported by a circle of friends and owners of race horses she trained into her 80s. The book became a best-seller, spurred by the 1986 broadcast of a public television documentary about Markham's life,World Without Walls: Beryl Markham's African Memoir, produced by Gutekunst, Shlachter, Joan Saffa, Stephen Talbot and Judy Flannery in collaboration withKQED-TV in San Francisco. Gutekunst and Shlachter had approached the station to co-operate on the documentary, directed by Andrew Maxwell-Hyslop. Actor Lyle Talbot narrated the film, British actressDiana Quick was the voice of Markham in readings from her memoir, and Shlachter conducted most of the interviews. CNN Africa correspondent Gary Streiker did the filming for the well-reviewed, award-winning PBS program.[12]
Markham died in Nairobi in 1986. Her short stories were posthumously collected inThe Splendid Outcast, with an introduction byMary S. Lovell. A tale fromWest with the Night was excerpted and illustrated by Don Brown as a children's book,The Good Lion. In 1988, CBS aired the biographical miniseries,Beryl Markham: A Shadow on the Sun, withStefanie Powers in the title role.
BothWest with the Night andSplendid Outcast appeared on theNew York Times best-seller list of hardcover fiction.[13]
Critics raised questions as to whether Markham was the true, or sole author ofWest with the Night, when her third husband Raoul C. Schumacher made claims to the book.[citation needed] Evidence abounds that she was indeed the sole author; copies of the manuscripts sent to her editor prior to Markham meeting her ex-husband quickly silenced the critics and his claims.[citation needed] Schumacher was lodging with Hollywood writer Allen Vincent in California according to the 1940 census and Markham re-entered the United States via Florida in 1941. It is unlikely that Schumacher would have had time to process such a detailed biography in such a short time, but may have suggested it might make a Hollywood film to encourage Markham to marry him.[citation needed]
Author Mary S. Lovell visited Markham in Nairobi and interviewed her extensively shortly before Markham's death, in preparation for her biography,Straight on Till Morning (1987). From her research, Lovell concluded that Markham was the sole author, although Schumacher made some basic edits to the manuscript. Instead, Lovell suggestsAntoine de Saint-Exupéry, another of Markham's lovers, may have served as inspiration for Markham's clear, elegant language and storytelling style.[14]
TheInternational Astronomical Union has named theimpact crater Markham, on theplanet Venus, after her.
