… why can’t I?

Group Captain Anne-Marie Houghton

Initially training as fighter controller, Anne-Marie Houghton then trained as a supply officer. When the law changed to allow women into aircrew roles, she became the first female navigator in the RAF serving on Hercules and later Sentry Airborne Early Warning System (AWACS) aircraft. She also became the first female navigation instructor. Anne-Marie has commanded No. 54 Squadron and was a strategic planner with the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. She is currently a Human Resources Manager for RAF aircrew.

Transcript:

'We were only allowed to go to multi-engines and we weren’t even allowed to go to Nimrods which dropped a weapon. So, it was VC10s, Andovers or Hercules’ what we would, were aiming for. (laugh) This is the interesting, so they wouldn’t let us fly fast jets and couldn’t even fly Nimrods and drop a, a torpedos and the Navy had then, not long after I graduated, opened up all jobs to females. So that was er Sea Kings and Harriers and everything else because they couldn’t split whatever. Um so I wrote to the Navy and said “Could I join them?” and they said “Yes, you can join straight away to 706 and go and chase submarines” and yeah we were still in the height of Cold War and chase submarines and dropped depth charges, things like that. So I wrote to the um, er, the Air Force and said “Please may I leave?” and they said “OK”. And the application went to two star in about two hours I think and it was a ‘You can do your OCU on the C130 and give us the 6 years return of service or you can go back to being a supply officer, give 3 years return of service and then you can go’. I’ll go the C130, thank you very much. But within a week Nimrods were open and within about two months fast jet were open so perhaps I may have had something to do with the change of heart but my head above the parapet there for a bit saying “well why can’t I?” you know, and er yeah the Navy would have taken me so ……(laugh) And again I suppose it’s back to that pushing the doors of what females are allowed to do. Um and you said at the beginning ‘Why, why didn’t you question why we, you know, the status quo of why those jobs weren’t open?’ Because you didn’t, but once the jobs started opening then we started to question well, well why I can’t see the reas, you know, if this is open then why shouldn’t that and yeah it, as I say yeah, about a month later, two months later for the fast jet, they were open to girls as well, so here we are …. (laugh) all these years later.'