I am the daughter of pioneer aviator, Oscar Garden, who is the son of a Rebecca Jane Ward who was born in Douglas "about" 1871 and Robert Garden of Tongue, Scotland.
My grandparents separated in 1911 and divorced in 1914. Mr Garden moved to Timaru, New Zealand with the two oldest daughters, May and Rose.
My grandmother took the two youngest (Oscar and Violet) and moved back to the Isle of Man for several years and my father went to a school in Douglas. In 1920 they moved to Christchurch, New Zealand.
There were a number of articles in Isle of Man newspapers about my father's epic flight from England to Australia in 1930 when he was only 27 years old and with only 35 solo flying hours experience. He later bcame a pilot for United Airways, British Airways and Imperial Airways. Shortly after the war broke out he joined the fledging airline TEAL based in new Zealand and delivered the second of two flying boats which were the only links between New Zealand and Australia during the war years. In 1942 he became Chief Pilot and Operations Manager, in essence the head.
He resigned in 1947.
I am writing a book about his life and his contributions to aviation. My article about his flight to Australia was published at Easter in the Weekend Australian Financial Review (see link) and there has been a subsequent world-wide interest in his "story"!!!
I am particularly interested in any information on his mother as she obviously had a very strong if not domineering influence on him. So any information, anecdotes etc would be great. No matter how "negative"! Also any info re any of her relatives that still live in the IOM.
I was born in 1950 and left New Zealand in 1973. Since the late 70s I have been living in Queensland, Australia. My postal address is 12 Evans Lane, Moore Park Beach, Bundaberg, Qld 4670. Ph: 61 7 41598823