90-year-old Moray woman Rosie pilots plane out of Inverness Airport to celebrate milestone birthday; airborne escapades are latest chapter in a storied life for the Elgin resident that included once fleeing Lebanon as a kidnapping target, and also being caught up in the middle of the attempt by Ian Ball to kidnap Prince Anne outside Buckingham Palace in 1974
Age is proving no barrier for an adventurous 90-year-old after she took the controls for a flight out of Inverness Airport to mark her milestone birthday.
Rosie Hales-Tooke, who first got her private pilot’s licence more than 60 years ago, flew from the airport with Highland Aviation on Friday.
And the airborne celebration was certainly apt for an individual who has a live-every-day-like-it’s-your-last attitude, and has led a “very adventurous life” - including a brave journey to safety when she once became a kidnap target in Beirut, and another occasion in 1974 when she was first on the scene of the thwarted attempt to kidnap Princess Anne on the streets of London.
Her daughter Lucy said: “Although she is old in years she is not old, still working and doing things. She took and passed with flying colours her IAM Institute of Advanced Motorists at the age of 82, volunteers for The Red Cross and also the Royal Air Force Association.
“She has led a very adventurous life.”
Rosie, who has lived near Elgin for more than 30 years, also helped to found the Elgin & District brand of the U3A (University of the Third Age) and was also chairperson there for two years
Her determination to seize the day also saw her take a flight at RAF Lossiemouth in an AT-3 R100 plane two years ago to mark her 88th birthday,
And although she is no longer as mobile as she once was, her daughter said her zest for life is still very much to the fore. “She is passionate about her beliefs and challenging herself and in her 80s attended a Tony Robbins event where she literally walked through fire!”
Speaking to this paper ahead of her special 90th birthday flight, which soared through the skies above the Black Isle and the Cromarty Firth, Rosie was really looking forward to her latest airborne adventure
"I haven't been up for a while so it'll be really, really good fun,” she said, adding that she had hoped to fly in a gyrocopter, as this was something she’d never flown before, but they were unfortunately out of action, so she got to enjoy taking the controls of a Piper Tomahawk airplane instead.
She also recounted some of the fascinating chapters of her life, including her hair-raising escape from Lebanon after learning she was a possible kidnapping target.
She was married to a millionaire who worked for an American publishing firm in Beirut, where she lived for three years - before having to escape the country overnight when her husband was tipped off that she was going to be kidnapped and held hostage.
Rosie said: “That was scary because Brian Keenan and John McCarthy got kidnapped [there in the 1980s]. [My journey out] was all organised. I was driven up to Syria, up the border and then got out and walked. And it was winter. It was cold. I've never been so scared in my life and I would never, ever go back to the Middle East.
“I think I was very lucky to get out. Especially now when you see what it became, all this dreadful fighting. And Beirut used to be a wonderful place at one point. It's not safe now.”
Another dramatic moment in Rosie’s life was when she was caught up in the middle of the infamous attempt to kidnap Princess Anne in March 1974. Would-be kidnapper Ian Ball pulled up in a car in front of Princess Anne’s car close to Buckingham Palace and began shooting at the royal motorcade.
Ball shot and injured four people before he was finally disarmed. He later admitted charges of attempted murder, attempted kidnapping and wounding and was detained indefinitely in a mental hospital before being released after 45 years in 2019.
“It's actually really weird,” said Rosie. “I was a dance teacher, and I was teaching at the dance centre that evening, and as I was going home that guy shot across my car... and I thought he was drunk.
“I parked my car to get out and have a row with him... and I think [Princess Anne’s] lady in waiting at that point had come out of the car because she said to me 'ooh, get down, somebody is shooting'. I went towards the car and then this guy in front of me suddenly dropped down on the ground and he was bleeding. He'd been shot.”
Although her presence at the kidnapping attempt was pure chance, it proved another dramatic chapter in a rich and storied life - one which Rosie is still very much determined to make the most of each and every day.
As Rosie herself perfectly put it two years ago, ahead of her RAF Lossiemouth flight: “You have to do as much as you can while you have the energy to do it. You just don't know how much time you have.”