Judy in her WAAF days.
A former WAAF* with a head for heights plans to jump out of an aircraft as near as possible to her 90th birthday[1] to raise funds for Veterans Aid and two other charities.
Judy Williams from Lakenheath, near Brandon, is also supporting World Vision and Ipswich-based charity Talitha Koum. To this end she is doing a sponsored tandem jump at Chatteris Airfield in Cambridgeshire, from a height of around 10,000 feet.
And this won’t be the first time that intrepid Judy has jumped out of an aircraft.
“I first did a jump 15 years ago,” she recalls, “on my 75th birthday. I must have driven home on adrenaline though because when I got in, I was sick.” Undeterred Judy put her bad experience down to sitting backwards in the aircraft.
“I definitely won’t be doing that this time though!”
Judy’s four year service in the WRAF included two years in Egypt, where she was part of with 107 MU (Maintenance Unit) in Kasfereet.
“It was a bit dull; I was just a pen pusher working in an office. I really wanted to be with MT, not admin” she explains.
Judy’s last jump raised around £1,500 for two other charities that she supported. This year’s fundraiser will be split between three. Two of them – Veterans Aid and Talitha Koum – because they do so much to help homeless veterans and women who are vulnerable.
This strikes a personal note for Judy who explains, “I was demobbed in the 1950s; I was only 22 and alone and I know what it’s like to have nowhere to go. A school friend helped me, and a service charity, and I managed to get a job at Boots the Chemists, which I loved.”
Former RAF officer and CEO of Veterans Aid Dr Hugh Milroy said: “What she is doing is amazing. Many of our supporters undertake endurance tests and awesome feats to raise funds to support our work, but 90-year-old Judy’s skydive is in a league of its own. We are grateful and awestruck in equal measure and will all be rooting for a happy landing on the day.”
*The Women’s Royal Air Force (WRAF) was founded in 1918, disbanded in 1920, and then re-formed in 1939 as the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) *. It reverted to its original name in 1949, and finally merged with the Royal Air Force (RAF) in 1994.
[1] Judy’s birthday is May 29th, but the date of her jump may slip to the nearest date depending on weather etc.
