Lisa, the grand lady of flight
John Scheerhout
MANCHESTER Airport bosses rolled out the red carpet for frequent-flying pensioner Lisa Wolfe - after they discovered she was their oldest surviving and longest-serving passenger.
Lisa was just 18 when she travelled on a KLM flight from Amsterdam to Ringway, as it was then called, on June 28, 1938.
The humble little airport had opened the day before and Lisa's flight, with just seven passengers, was only the second into Manchester.
With her mother Margaret Steinberg and gran Vilma Weiss, Lisa and other Jews had escaped Nazi persecution in her homeland Austria.
Bumpy
Her father Hugo Steinberg, a surgeon, who spent time in Dachau concentration camp, arrived in Manchester a year later. Other relatives were not so lucky - they were gassed in the camps.
Lisa, now 83 and a naturalised British national from Whalley Range, remembers that her flight from persecution was bumpy and made her feel sick.
She had no great desire to fly again and wouldn't for many years.
She worked as a housemaid, petrol-pump attendant, cleaner and finally a dressmaker.
With her husband George, a bookie, she only rediscovered flying in 1965 when she went to Majorca.
She has been a regular at Manchester Airport ever since. Lisa, who has three great-grandchildren, said: "I only just came back from Turkey two weeks ago.
"I've given the airport so much business over the years.
Guild
"We went all over after we got married. We travelled like nothing on earth: America, Asia, Tunisia, Spain. "We were always going somewhere.
"The airport has changed so much, I suppose for the better. They have to cope with all the millions of people who want to fly.
"I was one of only seven passengers that day when I first flew in. The airport was a big shed for Customs and we came out of these iron gates to the taxis which were waiting to take us home to Whalley Range."
Lisa was given the VIP treatment after airport chaplain the Rev Mike Vincer heard her story while he was giving a talk on the airport at her townswomen's guild.
He couldn't believe it when Lisa, who has a photographic memory, recalled the exact date the airport opened.
She was invited to be guest of honour at a Manchester Cathedral service on Monday commemorating 100 years of powered flight after Wilbur and Orville Wright took to the air.
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