'I took off reluctantly': Pilot recalls first ever flight at Bristol Balloon Fiesta

"Everybody around me said take off, and I reluctantly did," says 86-year-old Chenube Roy, a female pilot who made the first ever ascent at Bristol International Balloon Fiesta in 1979.

It was 46 years ago that she made the flight from Ashton Court, beating the event's founder Don Cameron who was supposed to have the honour of being first in the sky.

Ms Roy said she was encouraged to take flight after the newlywed couple flying with her started to get nervous.

"Part of being a pilot is creating a new adventure for other people and making sure that they're comfortable," Ms Roy said.

"The bride was beginning to get very frightened, and her husband was beginning to get tense as well, so everybody around me said just take off."

"I felt awful as I knew it wasn't my place to be first," she added. "But I've talked to Don about it since, and he said he doesn't even rememember it."

Ms Roy, who learnt to fly in Norfolk after seeing an advert in the local paper, only flew at the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta once.

45 years passed before she returned to Ashton Court again, in 2023.

"It was very moving," she said. "I was in tears. It wasn't that I wished I flying, it was just the joy that it was, it is.

"All the memories of ballooning and all the wonderful times."

Reflecting on her flight at the fiesta, Ms Roy said it was a "lovely morning" for flying.

But she recalled finding it hard to choose a suitable landing place, due to the bride's unusual flying attire.

Ms Roy explained: "I probably flew a little bit longer than I normally would looking for a field that we could get into without ruining her wedding dress.

"We also had to find some welly boots for her to wear because I didn't want her to wear her wedding shoes in the middle of the field!"

Not long after becoming the first pilot to take flight at the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta, Ms Roy set the first British record for the highest female ascent.

She said: "When I got to 14,500ft, I could see France and I could see the English Channel, and so I had to decide what to do.

"I was completely happy and I would have liked to go higher, but the only thing that stopped me on that occasion was the channel."

She didn't stop her adventures there, and went on to fly all around the world including in Egypt, South Africa and America.

While living in California, Ms Roy designed her own balloon and spent years flying it comercially while raising her two young sons.

"The weather was good most of the time, but the real treat was if you got up just high enough you could see the Golden Gate Bridge from the balloon," Ms Roy said.

There were also many unexpected encounters, some of which Ms Roy said she'll "never forget."

She explained: "Once I landed on a huge estate in north Norfolk belonging to a very well-known rich person, and I offered him a flight.

"Another time I was invited by Malcolm Forbes to the Château de Balleroy in Normandy for a balloon meet.

"It was there that I met the couple who managed to escape East Germany by making their own balloon."

"You have surprises every time," she said. "It's that kind of comeraderie I suppose."

Despite spending many years flying, Ms Roy hasn't been up in a balloon since 1994, in South Africa, but said she'd "love to go up again."

"It's been a while," she said. "But every flight is different. Every single time you fly."