Audrey Sale-Barker

Audrey Sale-Barker
Full name	Audrey Florice Durell Douglas-Hamilton
nation	United Kingdom
birthday	1903
date of death	December 21, 1994
Place of death	Dorset
Career
Medal table
World Cup medals 0 × 1 × 0 ×
Alpine World Ski Championships silver Cortina d'Ampezzo 1932 slalom

Audrey Florice Durell Douglas-Hamilton , b. Drummond Sale Barker (* 1903 ; † December 21, 1994 in Dorset ) was a British ski racer and pilot . She was born as the daughter of Maurice Drummond-Sale-Barker, her paternal grandmother was the children's book author Lucy Sale-Barker (* 1841; † 1892). On August 6, 1947, she married George Douglas-Hamilton, 10th Earl of Selkirk, and took his surname. In later years, Audrey Sale-Barker withdrew from the public and was primarily charitable. In 1994 she died less than a month after her husband. The couple had no children.

Athletic career

Sale-Barker was a founding member of the Ladies' Ski Club founded by Arnold Lunn . Her success began in 1929 when she was one of only two women to start at an international downhill race in Zakopane organized by the FIS , alongside her compatriot Doreen Elliott , finishing in 14th place and leaving 48 men behind. In the same year Sale-Barker won both the downhill and the combined classification in the women's competition of the Arlberg-Kandahar race . She was able to repeat this success in 1933 and also secure the title in slalom. With her five victories, she is still one of the most successful participants in this competition. Due to her achievement of achieving three podium positions and winning a combination at the Arlberg Kandahar race in four different years, she was awarded the diamond Kandahar needle in 1935 as the first woman . The table below summarizes their race victories.

date	run	place	discipline
1929	Arlberg-Kandahar race	St. Anton am Arlberg	Departure
1929	Arlberg-Kandahar race	St. Anton am Arlberg	combination
1931	Arlberg-Kandahar race	Murren	Departure
1931	Arlberg-Kandahar race	Murren	slalom
1931	Arlberg-Kandahar race	Murren	combination

She also took part in the Alpine World Ski Championships in Mürren in 1931 , in Cortina d'Ampezzo in 1932 and in St. Moritz in 1934 . Although she was able to secure the silver medal in the slalom on her second run, she also remembered her five fourth ranks in the three events: 1931 in the slalom, 1932 in the downhill and combined and again in 1934 in the downhill and combined.

The American ski racer Alice Kiare described Sale-Barker in the following words:

“Audrey Sale-Barker made an extraordinary impression on everyone who saw her ski. Very tall, extremely slim, her size emphasized by pants so long that they touched the floor around her boots, light honey-colored hair, a vague dreamy expression and when she was skiing I can only describe her as a sleepwalker. She stood very upright with both arms raised in front of her, she had little or no power reserves in a race, gave all she had and often passed out when the race was over. She had incredible courage and I will never forget how I saw her taking the last steep slope of Dengert at the destination of the Arlberg-Kandahar in 1928 absolutely straight, with arms raised like someone in a trance. "

Aviation

Audrey Sale-Barker (1932)

In 1929 Sale-Barker acquired a flight license and subsequently gave herself the stage name Wendy - based on one of the literary protagonists from the children's stories about Peter Pan . In October and November 1932, she and Joan Page , the daughter of Chief Justice in Burma Sir Arthur Page , took a flight from London to Cape Town in a De Havilland DH.60 . Initially, the duo were stopped in Cairo because the Sudanese authorities refused to grant them the right to fly, but in the end the trip was a success. The return flight took place at the beginning of next year, but on January 14, 1933, the women lost their bearings in low-hanging clouds and were thrown off course by strong gusts of wind. The plane crashed about 65 kilometers south of Nairobi in the rainforest on a rocky ridge. Page broke his leg and Sale-Barker sustained minor head injuries. The rescue operation, which was quickly initiated, attracted a great deal of media attention in the United Kingdom and was closely followed by the daily print media. While searching for water, Sale-Barker came across a Maasai and asked him to fetch help. She wrote a slip of paper on which, in the absence of other writing implements, she wrote with lipstick “Please come and fetch us. We've had an aircrash and are hurt. " On January 16, the pilot of a reconnaissance flight sighted the wreck with the two injured, but was unable to land. On the basis of his report, a rescue team was equipped that soon reached the women. Page was flown out on a hospital plane and Sale-Barker was taken in the car.

Sale-Barker joined the Air Transport Auxiliary in June 1940 , a group of experienced pilots who took on supply flights for Royal Air Force bases during World War II . A close friendship developed with her colleague Amy Johnson there.

Web links

• Audrey Sale-Barker in the database of the International Ski Federation (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Audrey Durell Drummond Sale Barker on thepeerage.com , accessed September 11, 2016.
2. ↑ Elizabeth Douglas-Hamilton: "The countess on her wedding day in 1949," The Herald (Glasgow), December 24, 1994.
3. ↑ Alice Kiare: Skiing, the International Sport , New York City , Derrydale Press, 1937. - Quoted in: Arnold Lunn: The Story of Ski-ing . London , Eyre & Spottiswoode (1952), 96
4. ↑ 1929 1-1450 Flight Archive . In: flightglobal.com . 2011 [last update]. Retrieved August 14, 2011.
5. ↑ Flight Archive . In: flightglobal.com . 1932. Retrieved August 14, 2011.
6. ^ "Aeronautics: Lost & Found" in Time , January 30, 1933
7. ^ "Girl Flyers, hurt, rescued in Africa" (PDF; 564 kB) in New York Evening Post , January 17, 1933, page 3