AS UNUSUAL 90th birthday presents go, a voucher for a flying lesson ranks among the more bizarre.

But the generosity of her friends saw 90-year-old Anne Guilbert take the controls of a light aircraft for the first time yesterday. The Maison L’Aumone resident and former Condor Ferries worker, who lived in St Andrew’s for 60 years, is the oldest pupil that Aero Club chief flying instructor James Wah has taken skywards.

She celebrated the turn of her tenth decade in November and received the unusual gift.

‘It was a real shock,’ she said. ‘I’m nervous, I’m a sea person really.

‘I’ve been dithering about it since my birthday.’

The active pensioner, who once a week takes the bus to her job as a volunteer at a charity shop and flies two or three times a year to see her son in Exeter, was given a full briefing prior to boarding the aircraft.

Asked by Mr Wah if she knew how a plane stayed up in the air, she joked: ”I do. It’s by suction from heaven.’

‘That’s only if we all stay here and pray,’ quipped Mrs Guilbert’s friend Alan Dearman, from St Peter Port.

Alan Smith, 75, was a neighbour of Mrs Guilbert for 20 years.

‘She’s given so much to people,’ he said. ‘We wanted to give her something back.’

‘We just wanted to do something different,’ said Val Campbell, a retired secretary from St Andrew’s.

‘She’ll try out more or less anything. I think she’s a little bit nervous today though.’

Her 11 friends watched as she prepared for take-off.

Once in the air, Mrs Guilbert deftly piloted the Piper Warrior III four-seater aircraft on a tour around Guernsey and Sark, soaring in perfect conditions above her former house and around the coastline.

‘It’s surprising when you come so far out to sea that there are so many rocks,’ she said.

‘And you don’t realise how built-up St Sampson’s and the Vale are until you see it from above.’

Mr Wah said he thought Mrs Guilbert had nerves of steel.

‘I joked that the engine had failed,’ he said. ‘But she just looked at me and smiled.’

Back on solid ground, Mrs Guilbert had only one regret.

‘That was great,’ she said. ‘But the earphones I had to wear on-board have messed up my hairdo.’