She married in 1932, but initially it was a strained arrangement as
her new husband was unsure about married life and felt he had a
calling to the priesthood. After 6 months in a monastery, he
emerged and they lived as husband and wife, although they had no
children.
Marion joined the ATA in December 1939 as one of the original eight
women pilots. The women started by collecting planes from On one
occasion, she arrived at a factory to discover that there was a strike
and that the aircraft she had come to collect could not be released.
She went to the workers’ canteen and gave a rousing speech about
the war effort; the plane was duly released!
After initial prejudice that women could only fly non-operational
aircraft, Marion was soon flying Spitfires and Hurricanes,
Mosquitos, and Wellington bombers, among a whole range of other
aircraft, including the Lancaster bomber, one of only eleven women
pilots to do so. Marion had flown most of the 130 aircraft that came
under the ATA remit by the end of the war.
Marion refused to install a radio in her aeroplane until required to do
so by law, as she disliked the noise. This made landing problematic
– if she wanted to land at an airfield, she would wave her wings and
wait for someone to flag her to indicate it was safe. If she was lost,
she would simply land in a suitable field and ask directions. On
more than one occasion she was told by an angry farmer that she
couldn’t land in his field, but her reply was always “Well I already
have!” to which they had no real reply. On one occasion this meant
that she interrupted a NATO training exercise, which did not go
down well, but Marion was irrepressible.