Barbara Jane Harrison (24^th May 1945 to 8^th April 1968)

About four hundred George Cross medals have been awarded to civilians for acts of heroism. On the perimeter of a picturesque cemetery on the outskirts of York lies the bones of the only woman to have been awarded one (in peacetime.) She wasn't alive to receive it. She was a 22-year-air stewardess on a burning plane at Heathrow Airport who died while trying to get as many passengers out before fire and flame took over.

There wasn't a church, spire or “Church Lane” to guide me to the flat, well-maintained cemetery just off the M62 motorway. I couldn't get the gate open and a woman sat in a car honked her horn and point to the other gate. I said I was here to visit the air hostess and were any other famous people buried there? “No….oh, there’s a boxer who's got an impressive headstone - all boxers gloves and things like that. Died of a brain jury while young." I saw it and realised I'd been here before.

I soon found the grave and was glad to see some flowers on it. Barbara Jane Harrison (preferred Jane) was working as a nanny in San Francisco when she applied for a job as an air stewardess with British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC). Aged 21 she passed the interview and started work flying across the globe. The seemingly glamorous job involving long-haul flights was tiring and she told a colleague she was thinking about leaving. Sadly she stayed and wasn't alive a year later.

In April 1968 she requested to work on a flight to Australia saying she had been invited to a wedding in Sydney (though the real reason was her hope of seeing a Qantas airline pilot she had met months earlier.) The Boeing 707 took in the afternoon carrying 116 passengers but an engine caught fire immediately. Before they could land an engine broke off and an explosion shook the plane. It landed quickly but fire which had engulfed the wing was now spreading through the fuselage. The front of the plane was closed down and the crew and some passengers escaped. However Jane and a colleague were at the back of the plane where flames were spreading. The escape chute was deployed but twisted. Her colleague climbed down to free it for use and was unable to get back into the plane. Jane was the only crew left to get the remaining passengers out. She remained inside and helped them as fire consumed the plane. Some passengers willingly jumped on the chute but Jane pushed others. The fuselage could have exploded at any time.

Fire is a sprinter and very soon the chute was burnt. With black smoke billowing out of the plane's door the captain screamed at Jane to jump. Witnesses say flames and smoke were now licking around her body. They saw her prepare to jump then turn back into the fuselage. There was an explosion and she wasn’t seen alive again. At the time it was not known why she returned to the inferno but a fireman suggested it was to help an Israeli woman in a wheelchair. Jane’s body was found in the debris huddled together with four others, all dead from "asphyxia due to inhalation of fire fumes" (one was an eight-year-old girl.) For gallantry and selflessness Queen Elizabeth II awarded Jane a posthumous George Cross.

The unfussy grave sits at a corner next to a path and I wondered how many people had passed it without known the sad story lain here. Blimey at only 22 years old this lass had been flying across the planet. At that age I was playing in my bedroom with my stuff (still am now.) There's a now blue plaque at Bradford's City Hall to remember this brave lass though it's disappointing it's taken this long to remember her. I did a salute and left to visit the war graves. One kid was 18 (see photo.)