| Medal record | ||
|---|---|---|
| Representing | ||
| Women's Alpine skiing | ||
| World Championships | ||
| 1932 Cortina d'Ampezzo | Slalom | |
Audrey Florice Durell "Wendy" Drummond Sale-Barker [1] [2] (1903 – 21 December 1994) was a British alpine skiing champion and prominent aviator. She captained the British women's team at the 1936 Winter Olympics. She earned her pilot's licence from the Royal Aero Club in 1929 and embarked on a flight to South Africa in 1932. During World War II she flew as a ferry pilot of the Air Transport Auxiliary. After her marriage to George Douglas-Hamilton, 10th Earl of Selkirk in 1947, she became Audrey Douglas-Hamilton, Countess of Selkirk.
Audrey Durell Drummond Sale-Barker was born in Chelsea, London in 1903. [3] Her father was Maurice Drummond Sale-Barker. Her grandmother was children's writer Lucy Sale-Barker. [4]
An inaugural member of the Ladies' Ski Club organized by Sir Arnold Lunn, she was the first female skier to win the diamond badge at the prestigious Arlberg-Kandahar race, signifying at least four top-three finishes in the combined race. She won the combined title at the second A-K race, held in St. Anton in 1929. [5]
American skier Alice Kiare described Sale-Barker as a striking figure:
Audrey Sale-Barker made an extraordinary impression on everybody who saw her ski. Very tall, extremely slim, her height accentuated by trousers so long that they touched the ground around her boots, pale honey-coloured hair, a vague dreamy expression, and when she skied I can only describe her as a sleep-walker. She stood very erect, with both arms slightly lifted in front of her, she had little or no reserve strength in a race, gave everything she had, and often collapsed and fainted when a race was over. She had incredible courage, and I will never forget seeing her take the last steep slope of Dengert at the finish of the 1928 Arlberg-Kandahar absolutely straight, with lifted arms like someone in a trance.
— [6]
In 1929 a letter was received inviting the British to send skiers to compete in an event in Poland. The organisers in Zakopane were surprised to find that the British team included Sale-Barker and another LSC founder member Doreen Elliott. Elliott and Sale-Barker were allowed to join the skiing competition and the skiers were impressed when they finished 13th and 14th. [7]
Sale-Barker was captain of the British women's team at the 1936 Winter Olympics, held at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, the first Olympics to include alpine skiing. [8]
In 1929, Sale-Barker earned her 'ticket' from the Royal Aero Club (RAeC). [9] In October and November 1932, she and another female pilot, Joan Page, flew from London to Cape Town in a de Havilland Gipsy Moth. They were held up for a time in Cairo when the Sudanese authorities wouldn't permit them to fly through the country. [10] On their return from Cape Town, they crashed near Nairobi; Page broke her leg, and Sale-Barker suffered a minor head injury. According to one contemporaneous account, the women were sighted by scouting plane and then located by a rescue party. [11] But according to another, more persistent account, the aviators were saved when a Maasai tribesman came upon them, and Sale-Barker sent him for help with a note written in lipstick, reading "Please come and fetch us. We've had an aircrash AND ARE HURT." [12] [13] She had the note framed and it hung in her Dorset home.
In June 1940, Sale-Barker joined the Women's Section of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), the organisation responsible for ferrying military aircraft from the aircraft-factories to the RAF units. [14] [15] She was a close friend of famed ATA pilot Amy Johnson. [16] On 30 November 1945, it was Sale-Barker who was charged with lowering the ATA flag for the last time. [17]
On 6 August 1947, she married fellow aviator George Douglas-Hamilton, 10th Earl of Selkirk, one of the legendary Douglas-Hamilton brothers, all four of whom had distinguished wartime careers in the RAF. On her marriage she became Audrey Douglas-Hamilton, Countess of Selkirk. The couple had no children. [4]
She died in Dorset on 21 December 1994, just one month after her husband. [18] In a remembrance written a few days after her death by her sister-in-law, Elizabeth Douglas-Hamilton, Duchess of Hamilton and Brandon, she described her postwar married life as a selfless one, dedicated to supporting her husband and those in need. [18]
The Scottish Conservative politician James Douglas-Hamilton was her nephew. [16]
Amy Johnson was a pioneering English pilot who was the first woman to fly solo from London to Australia.
Earl of Selkirk is a title in the Peerage of Scotland, used since 1646. It has rules of inheritance subject to unusual and unique provisions.
Duke of Hamilton is a title in the Peerage of Scotland, created in April 1643. It is the senior dukedom in that peerage, and as such its holder is the premier peer of Scotland, as well as being head of both the House of Hamilton and the House of Douglas. The title, the town of Hamilton in Lanarkshire, and many places around the world are named after members of the Hamilton family. The ducal family's surname, originally "Hamilton", is now "Douglas-Hamilton". Since 1711, the dukedom has been held together with the Dukedom of Brandon in the Peerage of Great Britain, and the dukes since that time have been styled Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, along with several other subsidiary titles.
William Douglas-Hamilton, Duke of Hamilton, KG, PC, also known as Lord William Douglas and the Earl of Selkirk, was a Scottish nobleman and politician. He was the eldest son of the 1st Marquess of Douglas by his second wife, Lady Mary Gordon, a daughter of the 1st Marquess of Huntly.
James Alexander Douglas-Hamilton, Baron Selkirk of Douglas, was a Scottish Conservative politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Edinburgh West and then as a member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Lothians region. Between 1997 and 2023 he was a member of the House of Lords as a life peer.
Sir Arnold Henry Moore Lunn was a skier, mountaineer and writer. He was knighted for "services to British Skiing and Anglo-Swiss relations" in 1952. His father was a lay Methodist minister, but Lunn was an agnostic and wrote critically about Catholicism before he converted to that religion at the age of 45 and became an apologist.
Marion AliceOrr, CM was a pioneering Canadian aviator who was the first woman to run a flying school. She served with the Air Transport Auxiliary during World War II and was awarded the Order of Canada in 1986.
Anne Hamilton, 3rd Duchess of Hamilton was a Scottish peeress.

Group Captain George Nigel "Geordie" Douglas-Hamilton, 10th Earl of Selkirk, was a British nobleman and Conservative politician.
Wing Commander Lord Malcolm Avondale Douglas-Hamilton, was a Scottish aristocrat, aviator and politician.
Douglas-Hamilton is the family surname of the Dukes of Hamilton and Earls of Selkirk.
Charles Ernest Whistler Mackintosh also known as Chris Mackintosh was a Scottish rugby union internationalist, athlete, skier and bobsledder who competed in the 1920s and 1930s. He won a gold medal in the four-man bobsleigh event at the 1938 FIBT World Championships in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Mackintosh also became Chairman of the Henry Lunn Alpine Tours company and President of both the Downhill Only Ski Club Wengen (1958-1964) and the Amateur Inter-Ski Club, the Kandahar Ski Club.
Lucy Elizabeth Drummond Sale-Barker, née Davies, known also by her first married name Lucy Villiers (1841–1892) was a British children's writer. She began her literary career with occasional articles for Dublin University Magazine and St James's Magazine, and about 1872 began to write regularly for children. Between 1874 and 1888 she published more than forty volumes for juvenile readers. Many of her stories were initially composed for her own children. Some of her publications bore such titles as Little Bright Eyes' Picture Book and Little Golden Locks' Story Book. She edited Little Wide-Awake, a magazine for children, from its commencement in 1874 until her death, and wrote the verses for Kate Greenaway's popular Birthday Book for Children (1880).
Pauline Mary de Peauly Gower Fahie was a British pilot and writer who established the women's branch of the Air Transport Auxiliary during the Second World War.
Rösli Streiff was a Swiss alpine skier and world champion.
Esmé Mackinnon, known as Muffie, was a British alpine skier from Edinburgh, Scotland, remembered as the first female FIS World Champion in both downhill and slalom. She was a member of the Ladies' Ski Club which was the first skiing club for women.
The Ladies' Ski Club was founded in 1923, at the suggestion of Arnold Lunn, by Doreen Elliott, Mrs Duncan Harvey and Lunn's wife, (Lady) Mabel Lunn. It was the first club for women who wanted to ski.

Doreen Elliott was a British skier. She was a co-founder of the Ladies' Ski Club and rose to be its president.
John Hamilton, 3rd Earl of Selkirk, 1st Earl of Ruglen, known as Lord John Hamilton until 1697, was a Scottish nobleman.
Gabrielle Ruth Millicent Patterson was a British aviator who worked for the Air Transport Auxiliary. She was Britain's first woman flying instructor.