When MaryWilkins was 11, her father paid for her to have a joy ride in a biplane at a travelling circus. Mary decided she wanted to learn to fly and when she was 16 she started having lessons.Mary successfully gained a private pilot's licence and flew for pleasure up until the start of the Second World War in 1939, when all civilian flying was banned.

In October 1941, she joined the Air Transport Auxiliary, and was posted to a pool of women flyers based in Hamble in Hampshire. Over the course of the war she flew over 1,000 planes of 76 different types, including Harvards, Hurricanes, Spitfires and Wellington bombers. Some of her flights were to relocate planes from Royal Air Force airfields to the frontline, and others were to ferry new planes from factories to airfields.

After the war the Air Transport Auxiliary was disbanded. However, Ellis was seconded to the Royal Air Force and continued to ferry aircraft. She was one of the first women to fly the Gloster Meteor, Britain's first jet fighter. She later moved to the Isle of Wight.

In 1950, she became the manager of Sandown Airport, and Europe's first female air commandant.] Ellis managed Sandown for twenty years, during which time she also founded the Isle of Wight Aero Club. A former ATA colleague, Vera Strodl, was hired by Ellis as the chief flying instructor.

In 1960 she married fellow pilot, Don Ellis. He died in 2009

In 2016, Ellis published her autobiography: A Spitfire Girl: The World's Greatest Female ATA Ferry Pilots Tells Her Story.

Adapted from Mary's Wikipedia page.