Beryl Markham Biography

Beryl Markham

Beryl Markham’s parents moved to Kenya when she was three years old, and she spent most of her life in Africa. Her first love was horses and she worked with her father breeding and training them. The big game hunter Denys Finch Hatton, of Out of Africa fame, introduced her to aviation, and she became the first woman in Kenya to get a pilot’s license. She then worked as a bush pilot delivering mail and supplies to remote regions. In 1936 she was the first to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west, which she recounted in her bestselling West with the Night. But after a friend was killed in an air race, she lost interest in flying. She eventually returned to her first love, horses, and became one of the most successful trainers in Africa.