Evette Huntley Branson (née Flindt; 12 July 1924 – 8 January 2021) was a British philanthropist, child welfare advocate, and the mother of

Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is a British billionaire, entrepreneur, and business magnate. In the 1970s he founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields. Branson expresse ...

Life and career

Branson was born in

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city anc ...

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbourin ...

, England, the daughter of Dorothy Constance (née Jenkins) (19 June 1898 - August 1997) and Major Rupert Ernest Huntley Flindt (11 St Faith's-road,

West Norwood West Norwood is a largely residential area of south London within the London Borough of Lambeth, located 5.4 miles (8.7 km) south south-east of Charing Cross. The centre of West Norwood sits in a bowl surrounded by hillsides on its east, ...

, 28 December 1890 - 19 October 1966). As a young adult, she served in the

Women's Royal Naval Service The Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS; popularly and officially known as the Wrens) was the women's branch of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy. First formed in 1917 for the First World War, it was disbanded in 1919, then revived in 1939 at the ...

(WRENS) during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. After the war ended, she toured

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

as a

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form ...

dancer with

Entertainments National Service Association The Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) was an organisation established in 1939 by Basil Dean and Leslie Henson to provide entertainment for British armed forces personnel during World War II. ENSA operated as part of the Nav ...

(ENSA). She later became an airline hostess for

British South American Airways British South American Airways (BSAA) was a state-run airline of the United Kingdom in the mid-late 1940s responsible for services to the Caribbean and South America. Originally named British Latin American Air Lines it was renamed before ser ...

. After marrying, Branson ran a real estate property business and was a

military police Military police (MP) are law enforcement agencies connected with, or part of, the military of a state. In wartime operations, the military police may support the main fighting force with force protection, convoy security, Screening (tactical), ...

officer An officer is a person who has a position of authority in a hierarchical organization. The term derives from Old French ''oficier'' "officer, official" (early 14c., Modern French ''officier''), from Medieval Latin ''officiarius'' "an officer," ...

and

probation officer A probation and parole officer is an official appointed or sworn to investigate, report on, and supervise the conduct of convicted offenders on probation or those released from incarceration to community supervision such as parole. Most proba ...

. She also wrote novels and children's books. In 2013 Branson published her autobiography, ''Mum's the Word: The High-Flying Adventures of Eve Branson''. ICMEC Board

Branson established the Eve Branson Foundation and served as its director. Branson was a member of the board of directors of the

International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children The International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, with a regional presence in Brazil, Singapore, and Australia, is a private 501(c)(3) non-governmental, nonprofit global organization. It ...

("ICMEC"), the goal of which is to help find missing children, and to stop the exploitation of children.Eve Branson (2013
''Mum's the Word''
p. 207. She was a founding member of ICMEC's board of directors in 1999, seeking to generate awareness of the centre's work, and her son Richard was ICMEC's founding sponsor.

Personal life and death

She married, in

Frimley Frimley is a town in the Borough of Surrey Heath in Surrey, England, approximately southwest of central London. The town is of Saxon origin, although it is not listed in Domesday Book of 1086. Train services to Frimley (on the line between ...

, Surrey, on 15 October 1949, Edward James "Ted" Branson, born on 10 March 1918, a former Cavalryman, son of Sir

George Arthur Harwin Branson Sir George Arthur Harwin Branson (11 July 1871 – 23 April 1951), known professionally as G. A. H. Branson, was an English barrister and High Court judge. In that role he was known as Mr Justice Branson. He is the paternal grandfather of Sir R ...

and wife Mona Joyce Bailey. He died on 19 March 2011 in his sleep at the age of 93. In 2011, Branson escaped a fire at her son's Caribbean home on Necker Island. Branson died from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickl ...

complications on 8 January 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom at the age of 96. A celebration of her life was posted online by her son Richard. He revealed that he owed his career to his mother, explaining that she had found a necklace in the 1960s and after the police let her keep the jewellery, because nobody had claimed it, she sold it and gave him the funds. "Without that £100, I could never have started

Virgin Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern ...

," he said.

Legacy

The

VMS Eve VMS ''Eve'' ( Tail number: N348MS) is a carrier mothership for Virgin Galactic and launch platform for SpaceShipTwo-based Virgin SpaceShips. VMS ''Eve'' was built by Scaled Composites for Virgin Galactic. The "VMS" prefix stands for "Virgin ...

the carrier mothership for Virgin Galactic and launch platform for

SpaceShipTwo The Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo (SS2) is an air-launched suborbital spaceplane type designed for space tourism. It is manufactured by The Spaceship Company, a California-based company owned by Virgin Galactic. SpaceShipTwo is c ...

-based Virgin SpaceShips ( Tail number: N348MS) was named in her honour by

Virgin Galactic Virgin Galactic is an American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and his British Virgin Group retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited. It is headquartered in California, and operates from New Mexico. The company ...

and her son Sir Richard Branson. A new Airbus A350-1000, G-VEVE - Fearless Lady has been named in her honour and will be delivered to

Virgin Atlantic Virgin Atlantic, a trading name of Virgin Atlantic Airways Limited and Virgin Atlantic International Limited, is a British airline with its head office in Crawley, England. The airline was established in 1984 as British Atlantic Airways, and ...

in December 2021 as the first aircraft optimised for the airline's leisure routes.

References

External links

The Eve Branson Foundation

Eve Branson obituary
at ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ...

'' (subscription required) {{DEFAULTSORT:Branson, Eve 1924 births 2021 deaths People from Edmonton, London Royal Navy personnel of World War II English ballerinas Flight attendants British police officers British women children's writers Women's Royal Naval Service ratings Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in England 20th-century English women 20th-century English people Women police officers