Meet Wendy Yawching

Hi! I’m so delighted you are here!

Many people know me as the first female Captain of Trinidad & Tobago’s national airline. It was my great privilege to light the way for other female pilots in my country, and I feel blessed that my journey opened many minds and hearts to what is possible for women.

Since my retirement in 2014, lots of people have asked me to write a book. I resisted the idea, because I’m naturally a very private person, and also because I’ve always been so busy living my life, there never seemed to be time to jot it down. There have been too many interesting things to learn and do, beautiful places to explore, distant mountain trails to hike, and let’s not forget practicing for ballroom dancing competitions!

And then, quite recently, someone asked me this question: What would you say to your eighteen year old self, if you could go back in time and have a coffee together? I thought about that. Really thought about it. And the idea for this book was born.

You see, if my eighteen year old self had known then, what I’ve learned with great effort over the decades that separate us… I wouldn’t have doubted myself for so long, I would not have listened to all the voices that told me “Girls don’t do that”, and I would not have spent so many years doing things that seemed sensible and “normal”.

I would have had the courage to be ME, from the get-go.

So here it is at last: a handy little guide which might have saved that younger Wendy a whole lot of time and worry, angst, lonely soul- searching and difficult scary decisions.

As I wrote this book, I realised that its message could have been useful to me at many checkpoints, or choice points, in my life right up to where I am now. There were so many places and times when these lessons would have helped me to struggle less, to have the confidence to follow my heart without fear.