ON A WING & A PRAYER

John and Betty have gone to great heights to get themselves into the record books

- NOKUTHULA ZWANE-EJIKE

SHE needs a walker to get around, battles arthritis in her neck and spine and admits to finding some of the things she used to enjoy, like horseriding, a challenge these days.

But there’s one thing that gives Betty Bromage wings – quite literally.

At the age of 93 there’s little she enjoys more than standing on the wing of a small aircraft as it loops and twirls through the air some 300m above the ground.

“It’s exhilarating to be up there with the wind in my face, hitting speeds of 140 miles per hour [225km],” she says. “The wind blows your cheeks in and out – you never know, I might come back down without any wrinkles!”

Betty isn’t the only silver-haired daredevil zipping around the skies – John Symonds is an avid wing-walker too. And these two have earned themselves a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest male and female wingwalkers in the world.

John, at 95 years and 138 days, took the title from Ivor Button, who was 95 years and 122 days on his last wing walk.

The three nonagenarians are all from Gloucestershire in England and get a real thrill out of being harnessed onto the aircraft’s body, hearing the engine roar to life and leaving terra firma far, far behind.

Betty, a former nurse, says she found retirement boring. “I thought to myself, ‘Well, I’m not going to sit here and do nothing’. I was never adventurous before but I just decided I wasn’t going to waste my time.”

A TV ad for a chocolate bar featuring a wing-walker had stuck in her head, she says. “And I thought that was something interesting.”