Mairi's Motorbike

Collins Big Cat supports every primary child on their reading journey from phonics to fluency. Top authors and illustrators have created fiction and non-fiction books that children love to read. Levelled for guided and independent reading, each book includes ideas to support reading. Teaching and assessment support and eBooks are also available.


Mairi Chisholm was a Scottish motorbike rider who volunteered for the Women’s Emergency Corps during the First World War. Discover how she became one of the famous “Angels of Pervyse”.


Sapphire/Band 16 books offer longer reads to develop children's sustained engagement with texts and are more complex syntactically.


Text type: A biography


Ideas for reading in the back of the book provide practical support and stimulating activities.


Lynne Rickards was fascinated by the story of Mairi Chisholm, a teenage motorcycle enthusiast who was only 18 when war was declared in 1914. Instead of retreating to the safety of her privileged life as a wealthy debutante, Mairi and her best friend Elsie Knocker rode their motorbikes to London and volunteered as Women’s Auxiliary dispatch drivers. Soon spotted as a fearless and skilful driver, Mairi was recruited to join Dr Hector Munro’s Flying Ambulance Corps, and she and Elsie spent most of the war on the Western Front retrieving wounded soldiers from the battlefields and patching them up, saving over 1,000 lives. Lynne couldn’t help but be inspired by this amazing young woman, and was thrilled to have a chance to share her story in Mairi’s Motorbike.