Dolly Shepherd
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Dolly Shepherd (1887-1983), real name Elizabeth Shepherd, changed the course of her life when she got a job as a waitress at the Alexandra Palace, London, so that she could see the famous composer Edward Souza.
She overheard two gentlemen at one of her tables bemoaning the fact that they had lost the target for an act in which one of the gentlemen shot an apple off a girl’s head. Aged 16, she volunteered on the spot.
This led on the next year, 1905, to an act in which she ascended on a trapeze slung below a hot-air balloon to a height of 2-4,000 feet before descending on a parachute.
On one occasion both the balloon and the parachute malfunctioned, and she found herself rising to 15,000 feet. At this height, both the cold and lack of oxygen were threatening to make her lose her grip and fall to her death. Fortunately, the balloon returned to earth before it was too late.
She was not so lucky on a later occasion when she ascended with another girl. The other girl’s parachute would not release, so she had to wrap her arms and legs around Dolly so that they could descend on the one parachute.
The descent was of course much too fast, and Dolly was paralysed for several weeks. She nevertheless returned to her act, and first flew again at Ashby-de-la-Zouch.
Dolly later married, (married name Elizabeth Sedgwick), but still managed a flight with the Red Devils RAF display team a few years before she died aged 96.