Life Story
“Marion Wilberforce was the quintessential ‘ATA-Girls’:
resourceful, daring & skilled, with more than a touch of eccentricity
in her make-up.”
She was one of 7-children of John Ogilvie-Forbes, the 9th Laird of
Boyndlie, Aberdeenshire, and his wife Ann. When she was just 12
her father had decided he was no longer interested in the
management of the family house and estate so Marion took over.
She was regularly spotted astride a horse, riding round the estate to
collect rents.
Her initial education was at home by French governesses before
she attended a convent school in Stony Stratford from 1919 to 1921
before attending Somerville College, Oxford where she got a
degree in Agriculture. Here she also explored an adventurous side
joining the women’s mountaineering club and taking up jiu-jitsu.
Marion followed the example of her elder brothers and decided to
take up flying and this soon became her passion. She gained her
private pilot’s licence in 1930 and then in 1937 bought her first
plane with money that she had made trading on the stock market
when she was a child.
For tax purposes, her planes were classified as farm implements
and kept in a barn. This wasn’t just a tax deception, Marion actually
used them to move around poultry and Dexter cattle, which were
bred specifically by Marion as they were small enough to fit into the
aircraft.