Growing up in the small Tongan village of Vava'u, Silva Mcleod fantasised about becoming a pilot but never believed that one day she'd actually fly jet planes around the world.
Silva Mcleod joins Kathryn Ryan to talk about her life, her 30-year aviation career and the new memoir Island Girl to Airline Pilot: A Story of Love, Sacrifice and Taking Flight.
Silva McLeod Photo: Supplied
After meeting her Australian husband Ken and leaving Tonga for Melbourne, Mcleod's dreams of being a pilot took a back seat while the couple worked and raised a family.
Eventually, she did become Tonga's first female airline pilot, flying with Royal Tonga Airlines, Australia's Royal Flying Doctor Service and Virgin International.
As a child, the idea of becoming a pilot "was never really a dream, because I could never envision reaching it or getting there," Mcleod says.
"It was more like a fantasy because it was never going to happen.
"Growing up in Vava'u, in a tiny little island of Pangaimotu, 200 people live there: you walk one way you reach the beach, you turn around 180 degrees you reach the beach. So to dream of eventually becoming an airline pilot one day, or even just flying an aeroplane was unreachable - so I kept it as a fantasy."
Mcleod always loved to watch planes flying overhead.
"I can just visualise myself as a child running outside every time I hear a sound of an aircraft and I was there [looking] at the sky until the aircraft disappeared.
"The curiosity in me ... was getting a little bit too much, running away with the thought of 'oh wow, how clever is that, imagine the people that are flying that machine... wouldn't it be amazing to operate such a machine, because it defies gravity? The fantasy was right from a young age, but it wasn't a dream because I didn't think that I'd get there."
Photo: 123RF
At the time, the horizons of what a girl from Mcleod's world might grow up to do were prescriptive, she says; "like wanting to reach for a piece of coconut but finding your arms are bound".
In Vava'u, television and newspapers weren't easily accessible, so glimpses of the lives and places outside of the immediate community were limited, she says.
"It felt like 'I can't get out'. It's the same right across the Pacific Islands, it's not just Tonga. We have such a rich culture and living in it ... it's just part of you and something I will treasure and value for the rest of my life. But then on the other hand, it's restrictive because there's nothing else to do.
"You go to school and then after that there was no university, there was no job. What could you do on an island? You couldn't see a future."
"We are bound by culture, we bind by family, we bind by religion. It's like you are free but you are bound to something. That's just the way it is, and that's just the island life, and you just grow up understanding it and it's part of you."
These days, wider media and internet connectivity mean Pasifika children have a view to more open horizons, Mcleod says.
Her own love story began while working as a waitress in Tonga when she met an Australian man named Ken Mcleod.
"At first, it wasn't the done thing to do... Unfortunately, the picture we have that white men come in - it's not a very nice picture, but that's how it was - they impregnate the Tongan girl and then nick off, and mum and dad, nan and pa will have to clean up the mess.
"So this is quite rare, a young handsome Pālangi came to our island and we found a common attraction to each other. My family feared the worst ... so it wasn't very well received in the beginning.
"Language was a huge barrier at the beginning, because my family couldn't speak a word of English and Ken couldn't speak a word of Tongan. So how could Ken make a conversation that might help my family accept the situation? But it didn't take long."
In 1980, the couple married and moved to Melbourne, where they raised two daughters.
Later in a conversation with her husband, Mcleod mentioned her fantasy of becoming a pilot. Instead of laughing, he told her that she could do it.
Not long after, Ken became sick, though, and underwent chemotherapy. Mcleod focused on his recovery until her husband later asked her about what it would take to get her started and bought her a birthday present of vouchers for an introductory flight.
Six years later, she earned her air transport pilot's license and became the first Tongan woman to qualify as a pilot, and later a flight instructor.
The work brought Mcleod great satisfaction, though she frequently faced both racism and sexism along the way; even just yesterday a caller asked if they could speak to 'Mr Mcleod' the pilot.
A Virgin Boeing 777 taking off from Sydney Photo: 123RF/ Ryan Fletcher
As a pilot, Mcleod was "quite happy just flying 737s all around" but followed with interest as Boeing 777s were developed and introduced, with automated fly-by-wire technology.
She even pinned an enlarged photo of an early model to her wall but never dreamed she would one day fly such a large plane.
"I was based in New Zealand for nearly 12 months - loved my time there. That was on the 737s, so I did all of the domestic in New Zealand as well as all the South Pacific Islands."
Mcleod then began working for an airline that was part of the Virgin stable and was trained to pilot 777s there - another satisfying milestone.
She also felt great pride joining Royal Tongan Airlines and becoming the first pilot to speak Tongan to the largely Tongan passengers over the intercom.
But Mcleod underlines that flying aeroplanes does not define her life. Her journey, family, cultural identity and partnership with Ken underpinned her success in the skies.
Sadly, Ken died recently as the Covid-19 pandemic swept through the world, and McLeod says that until the end they remained both close and committed to breaking down barriers.
Her approach to caring for Ken through sickness and making their relationship the strong foundation of their lives was very much the Tongan way.
"I was a wife first, a mother, a grandmother, a carer, and I just call myself a worker ... whatever field you have it's no different. I just wanted to tell my story."
