Support the Heritage Centre by purchasing your local history books and Air Transport Auxiliary-related aviation books from our online shop. Gifts, prints and cards are available for purchase at the Centre.
Jump to: Aviation Books | Local History Books
Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you cannot find a specific item.
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Spitfire Simulator Experience Online Booking
With the replica flight controls and wide screen pilot view, our Spitfire Simulator Experience gets fantastic reviews.
To book online click here.
Spitfire Simulator Experience Gift Vouchers – the perfect gift
With the replica flight controls and wide screen pilot view, our Spitfire Simulator Experience gets fantastic reviews. Gift Vouchers are available for 30- or 60-minute sessions. 60 minutes is recommended for ‘pilots’ over 16 as this enables them to have several take-offs and landings. Click below to buy your vouchers
30 min voucher
60 min voucher
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Aviation Books
Includes Air Transport Auxiliary collection
ATTAGIRLS – based on a true story of Air Transport Auxiliary
Published in August 2021. This new novel by Paul Olavesen-Stabb, with an introduction by our chairman Richard Poad, is based on the true story of 22-year old Molly Rose, who joined ATA in September 1942. Based at No. 15 Ferry Pool at Hamble, Molly worked alongside women like Joan Hughes, Diana Barnato-Walker, Mary Ellis, Jackie Moggridge and the formidable Lettice Curtis – all of whom appear in the book. The author has captured the wartime atmosphere and the spirit of ATA very well and has introduced the fictional elements very discreetly. Definitely a good winter read!
£20 (plus postage & packing)
Pauline Gower, Pioneering Leader of the Spitfire Women
PAULINE GOWER was the leader of the Spitfire women during the Second World War. After gaining her pilot’s licence at 20, she set up the first female joyriding business in 1931 with engineer Dorothy Spicer and took 33,000 passengers up for a whirl, clocking up more than 2,000 hours overall. Pauline went on to command the inaugural women’s section of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) and achieved equal pay for her women pilots. She enabled them to fly ‘Anything to Anywhere’, including Tiger Moths, Hurricanes, Wellingtons and – their firm favourite – the Spitfire.
Pauline Gower: Pioneering Leader of the Spitfire Women is a story of bravery, fortitude and political persuasion. Pauline was a clear leader of her time and a true pioneer of flight. She died after giving birth, at only 36; a life cut tragically short, but one of significant achievements. Pauline left a huge legacy for women in aviation.
£12.99 (plus postage & packing)
AMY JOHNSON A Life in Pictures
This beautiful book tells Amy Johnson’s remarkable life through a rich selection of contemporary photographs. Many of these pictures have never been seen before and capture her as a child and a student, at home with her family, riding horses and driving cars – as well as a celebrity pilot making amazing flights across the world. Highly recommended.
£15.00 (plus postage & packing)
Somerville’s War
by Andrew Duncan
This tale of deception, betrayal and romance links a feisty ATA pilot, her boring boyfriend, an enigmatic Pole hellbent on vengeance and a treacherous master spy. The action starts in the bucolic New Forest and unfolds between the SOE school for spies, the skies above southern England and occupied Normandy. The life and death climax will have you on the edge of your seat. Note: the author’s mother was an ATA pilot and he captures the ATA life very well.
£10.99 (plus postage & packing)
Brief Glory: The story of the Air Transport Auxiliary
by E.C. Cheesman
Re-printed exclusively by the Maidenhead Heritage Trust. First published in 1946 and reprinted in 2012.
“The men and women of Air Transport Auxiliary were civilians in uniform who played a soldier’s part in the Battle of Britain and who performed, throughout the war, a task of supreme importance to the R.A.F.
They brought the airplanes to the squadrons. In foul weather and fair, by night and day, they kept the ferry moving.” The Right Hon. The Lord Beaverbrook.
£12.99 (plus postage & packing)
A Spitfire Girl – Mary Ellis
As told to Melody Foreman
978 1 47389 536 2 
A Spitfire Girl – one of the world’s greatest female ATA (Air Transport Auxiliary) Ferry Pilots tells her story.
In this biography the woman who kept in the background during her ATA years and left the glamour of publicity to her colleagues, finally she reveals all about her action-packed career which spans almost a century of aviation, and her love for the skies which, even in her nineties, never falters.
From Tiger Moths to Hurricanes and Spitfires, from Wellington Bombers to post-war jets, Mary’s desire to take to the skies has never faltered.
£14.99 (plus postage & packing)
Spitfire Women of World War II
by Giles Whittell
ISBN: 978-0-00-723536-0
This is the incredible true story of a wartime sisterhood of women pilots: a group of courageous pioneers who took exceptional risks to fly Spitfires, Hurricanes and Lancasters to the frontline airfields of World War II.
The women pilots of Air Transport Auxiliary came from all countries and backgrounds. Although not allowed into combat, they demonstrated astonishing bravery in their supporting role: flying unarmed, without radios or instruments, and at the mercy of the weather and enemy aircraft, they delivered battle-ready planes to their male counterparts, the fighter pilots of the RAF. The story of these remarkable women pilots – among them Amy Johnson and Lettice Curtis –is a riveting account of women in wartime, and a fitting tribute to their courage, skill and sacrifice.
£9.99 (plus postage & packing) SOLD OUT!
Amelia Earhart
‘Never do things others can do and will do if there are things others cannot do or will not do’
A pioneering aviator and advocate of women’s equality, Amelia Earhart was, and continues to be, an inspiration to people the world over.
ISBN: 978 0750 979481
£9.99 (plus postage & packing)
The Memory Detectives
by Julia Amos
ISBN: 978-1999655815
For 8-10 year olds. When dementia strikes an elderly lady, four young friends succeed in unlocking the secrets of her past. An exquisitely touching story about a little known part of World War 2 history. Spoiler alert: The ATA figures largely.
£6.00 (plus postage & packing)
Local History Books
Jump to: Aviation Books
Maidenhead Through Time
by Elias Kupfermann & Carol Dixon-Smith
ISBN: 978 1 4456 3849 2
Maidenhead lies on the west bank of the River Thames and form part of the county of Berkshire. One of the largest settlements in the area, Maidenhead has a rich and fascinating history. Recorded as Ellington in the Domesday Book, the town’s present name refers to the ‘new warf’ or ‘Maiden Hythe’, on the riverside. Upon the coming of the Great Western Railway, the town underwent significant expansion. Today, Maidenhead is a thriving town with a population of 78,000 people. The photographs in this book traces some of the many ways in which Maidenhead has changed and developed over the last century.
£14.99 (plus postage & packing)
Maidenhead A Pictorial History
by Luke Over
ISBN: 978 1 8607 7666 3. Originally published in 1990. The Maidenhead Heritage Centre manged to convince ‘The History Press’ to do a re- print in 2016.
This book is full of fascinating black and white photographs from years gone by of the town
About the author (1931 to 2015) Luke Over was a research historian and an historical journalist. He studied archaeology at London University and for 25 years worked on and directed excavations in various parts of the country, but mainly for his native Berkshire. He was born and educated in Maidenhead, where he was regarded as the local historian. He contributed some 90 major articles on local history to The Maidenhead Advertiser, and wrote many books and booklets on aspects of the area including his popular Story of Maidenhead (1984). He also produced numerous journal and magazine articles, reports, short stories, plays, and librettos for five three-act musicals. His other interests were ornithology and drama.
£14.99 (plus postage & packing)
Around Maidenhead : Photographic Memories by Martin Andrew
The Francis Frith Collection
ISBN: 1-85937-339-9
A County, Town and Theme book illustrated with photographs from the world-famous Francis Frith Collection.
£13.00 (plus postage & packing)
A Land Girl’s Diary – Burnham 1948
Written and compiled by Burnham Historians
ISBN: 0 9519859 5 7
The work of the Women’s Land Army during and after the Second World War received little official recognition. In 1948, in Burnham, Buckinghamshire the Burnham Grove Estate benefited from the help of several girls, one of whom recorded her daily work and leisure activities. Doreen’s diaries have been reproduced in full together with background information about the Women’s Land Army, the Clifton-Brown Estate where she worked, and the Burnham area in 1948.
£3.99 reduced price (plus postage & packing)
Moffatt Street, Maidenhead
Memoirs of Ernie Brenner by Joy Moseley
This book has been compiled by Joy Molesey, who was born and brought up in Maidenhead. Her grandfather Ernie Brenner, born in 1904, grew up in Moffatt Street in the shadow of the Nicholsons Brewery which once dominated the centre of Maidenhead. The street vanished when the shopping precinct replaced the brewery buildings.
£10.00 (plus postage & packing)
