SILVA Mcleod describes herself as an “island girl”, a nickname that is suggestive of the now 61-year-old’s idyllic and simple teenage years growing up in a small community in Tonga.
Mcleod’s book, Island girl to airline pilot, tells a very different story of ambition, determination and achievement against the odds as the first Tongan woman to become an airline pilot.
The book, to be released in April and launched on the Mornington Peninsula on 5 May, is part love story, inspirational message, tragedy and feel-good memoir as Mcleod tells of her first meeting more than 40 years ago with Australian electrician Ken Mcleod (who was working in Tonga for an Australian aid organisation), their deep love and their marriage in 1980.
It also tells of Mcleod’s other love, flying, and her burning desire to become an airline pilot that she eventually fulfilled through self-belief and the support of family.
Not long after the 19-year-old met her 29-year-old Aussie sweetheart, the pair married in a traditional Tongan ceremony and moved to Australia, where they had two children and lived in Rye, Ken’s former home.
Mcleod was thrust into a new lifestyle far away from the restrictive but idyllic Pacific island life and, as a woman of colour in the 1980s, it wasn’t easy. Mcleod says she encountered frustration and racism, along with the immense guilt of leaving her Tongan family.
But in between working in hospitality, looking after the home and family and making community connections, Mcleod never dropped her dream of flying a plane, even when disaster struck.
“About 10 years after moving here I was given a voucher for a flight and really loved it, and my husband, who was in hospital after being diagnosed with multiple myeloma, turned around in his bed and said that if I wanted to still pursue flying, I should do it and we would make it happen,” she said.
“There was no doubt in my mind and he knew it was important to me. I would never have been able to do that in my village in Tonga, where women look after the home mostly and can’t pursue worldly ambitions … I would have been ridiculed.”
After nearly two years of study and lessons, Mcleod achieved the necessary licences to fly for a commercial airline and was employed in her “dream” job with Tonga Airlines, which required a move back to the island nation.
Living away from her husband and girls was difficult, as was the twice-monthly commute between countries to maintain a “normal” family life.
“That was the hardest part, I missed my husband and kids, but I knew it had to be done, there really wasn’t any other way,” she said.
Four years later Mcleod was able to move back to her family in Rye when she secured a job flying a Boeing 777 with Virgin, but she faced another challenge decades later when she was made redundant and around the same time, in 2020, her husband died from his cancer.
Grieving and trying to hold her life together, Mcleod faced a frighteningly uncertain future, but again, her tenacity and optimism shone through, and at close to 60 she pursued another passion – property and houses – to become a licensed real estate agent.
Mcleod’s book is written with humour, honesty and clarity, and is an enjoyable read that shines the light on love and loss, personal endurance, and goal setting.
It is being launched at The Dunes in Rye, where Mcleod once worked.
“I really wanted to have the launch locally, to share it with my community,” she said.
First published in the Southern Peninsula News – 28 March 2023
