comment on the subject. Her mother noted that Batten was too busy to consider marriage and also reiterated how much she had financially supported her daughter in her record ambitions. A publicity tour for Batten followed; she was interviewed for BBC television and radio and attended a series of banquets and receptions. Madame Tussauds made Batten's effigy in wax and she was also presented to the King and Queen at Buckingham Palace, meeting King Leopold of Belgium at the same time. By this time she was living with her mother in a flat in Kensington. In early 1938, she was awarded the medal of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, aviation's highest honour; she was the first woman to receive the medal. Her autobiography, My Life, was published later in May but was poorly received, in much the same way as her previous book had been. She began to tour continental Europe with her Percival Gull; she was hosted by Blèriot's widow in Paris, King Leopold in Brussels, and by the Swedish royal family in Stockholm. Holidays in Milan and Lake Como followed. Early in 1939 she commenced a lecture tour of Scandinavia and the Baltic States on behalf of the British Council; she was well received with favourable reports being sent back to London. With her mother, Batten embarked on a spring cruise in the Caribbean, funded by the profits from her lecture tour. Another holiday, separate from Ellen, followed in the late summer, staying in Sweden with Axel Wenner-Gren, an industrialist who was the owner of Electrolux. At the time, tensions in Europe were high, with the outbreak of war imminent. Batten was ignorant of this and was planning trips to Finland and Oslo before beginning her next lecture tour in October. Just before the end of the month she was advised by the British Foreign Ministry to not travel over German airspace when returning to England. She sought help from Wenner-Gren, who used his connections with Germany to secure clearance for Batten to fly her Percival Gull back over the North Sea with a stop at Hamburg. According to her biographer, Batten later claimed that while at Hamburg, German fighter pilots there blew her kisses. She arrived back in England on 27 August; it was to be the last time she flew herself. Second World War Within days of the outbreak of the Second World War, Batten wrote to