Sally Smith
Speaker Topics
History, Sports, Other
Locations Covered
South West, West Midlands
Fees
£75 - £150
Availability
Short Notice
Profile Bio
Sally Smith is a journalist and writer who has worked for various publications and media including as a foreign correspondent for the Daily Mail and for BBC News in England and ABC News in Australia. She was named Business Writer of the Year, has a Churchill Fellowship and is an established author with books published by Pelham Books, Rigby Books and The History Press. She has also had a distinguished career in various aviation sports, was British freefall champion, founder and team leader of the world’s only all girl skydiving display team and represented both Great Britain and Australia in parachuting and also ballooning world championships. She also qualified as a commercial balloon pilot. In December 2024 Sally was awarded the Royal Aeronautical Society’s 2024 Women in Aviation, Aerospace and Space award.
Along with aviation and sky sports, Sally has devoted much of her life to travel. She has lived on four continents, visited 72 countries and worked in major cities around the world from Cairo to Singapore and Tokyo to Perth, Western Australia. Sally is an elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. She now continues to write from her home base in Somerset, UK.
Talk Description
The Women Who Went Round the World
Sally talks about the extraordinary journeys of the women featured in her latest book, The Women Who Went Round the World – the women who were the very first to achieve a full circumnavigation by sea, land and finally by air.
Starting in 1767, Sally explains the extraordinary story of Jeanne Baret who broke the law and travelled as a man on a French government ship and the drama that ensued when she discovered a plant in Brazil but named it after the captain of the ship, Captain Bougainville, to stop him arresting her. The idea worked, Jeanne wasn't arrested and the bougainvillea is now one of the most popular plants in the world! Sally then goes on to cover a range of astonishing, entertaining and sometimes very funny stories, including the wonderful story of Harriet Fisher White, who had little concept of what she was doing when she set out to see the Taj Mahal, but ended up in 1910 being the very first woman to drive right around the world, collecting two dogs and a monkey on the way.
Sally’s talk gives a wonderful account not just of the personal lives and journeys of these groundbreaking women, but also offers a fascinating glimpse into society at very different times in history.
Other Talks
Magnificent Women and Flying Machines, the first 200 years of British women in the air
This covers the lives of the British women who achieved real firsts in aviation, from the very first British woman to go up in a balloon in 1785 to the first woman who gained her pilots’ licence (her husband flatly refused to allow her to take flying lessons, so she did it under a different name!) and from the first woman to make a parachute descent (brought up in a Victorian workhouse, she went on to parachute from 3,000 feet over Cheltenham in 1889, an amazing story) right up to the fabulous women of the ATA in the second world war and finally Helen Sharman, the first British woman in space.
Each woman has the most wonderful story, not one of them came from aviation backgrounds, and Sally’s talk is really about their personal stories, how or why they got involved in what in those days was a new and very male orientated field. Some of the stories are funny, some are breathtaking… but it is all a fascinating look at different eras and a snapshot into the different lives of women in more restricted times. The talk is entertaining rather than technical, although of course some aviation details are covered.
