In November 1964 Nottinghamshire Junior 1st XI captain Barbara Brindley led her team to a 5-1 victory with a determined spirit in a match at the Meridian Ground. Hockey Field magazine reporting on the match claimed that she, “broke up many Lincolnshire attacks”.
Little over a decade later, Barbara called upon that same spirit during a life-threatening situation when she was held hostage in a hijack.
The hijacking occurred on British Airways flight BAC 1-11 on 7 January 1975 en route from Manchester to London Heathrow. A 29-year-old man, an out of work television engineer, took control of the plane with a gun and a grenade. The passengers on the plane were let out at Heathrow on the condition that the hijacker would be flown to Paris. His demands included a parachute and £100,000 – the current equivalent value of over £2million. The money and the parachute were loaded onto the plane at Heathrow and an 8-hour stand-off begun between the then Commander of the Metropolitan Police’s Airport Division and the hijacker.
Barbara was working as a flight attendant on the plane. The hijacker held her at its rear and threatened alternately to kill a member of the crew or to blow the plane up unless his demands were met. Seemingly untroubled by her ordeal, Barbara later described the hijacker as polite but recalled how he refused offers of food and drink and became increasingly edgy.
A plan was hatched and the pilot set off for ‘Paris’. Unbeknown to the hijacker, the plane set off in a sweeping circle and headed for Stansted Airport north of London. Efforts had been made to remove obvious signs of it being a British airport and the hijacker only became aware that they were not in Paris just before landing. Upon exiting the plane, the hijacker made a break for it and ran, but he was taken down by a police dog handling team and arrested. The gun and grenade turned out to be toy replicas.
Barbara and another flight attendant were rewarded with a trip to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil for their efforts.
Barbara Brindley may have played junior hockey for Midlands Juniors. This photograph from Hockey Field magazine was taken during the period when Barbara was excelling in junior hockey.
Unfortunately, we don’t have the rights to use a picture of Barbara, but you can see her photographed from the link below. If anybody knows more about Barbara Brindley through her hockey affiliations, we’d love to know how she’s getting on.
