Sheila Scott was arguably Britain’s greatest woman aviator

For although former Alice Ottley scholar Sheila Scott was arguably Britain’s greatest woman aviator, her name is rarely mentioned locally in the same breath as say Sir Edward Elgar, Vesta Tilley or Sir Charles Hastings.

True, there is a Blue Plaque in her honour on the old AO buildings – today part of Royal Grammar School Worcester - and the local university does have a building named after her but now the Explore The Past department of Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service is asking the public for help to document her life more fully.

On Monday, October 28 anyone who has memories, photographs or documents relating to Ms Scott is invited along to Level 2 at The Hive between 10am and 3pm to share them with research experts.

Julia Pincott, archive assistant, explained: “Sheila Scott was born and raised in Worcester and went on to become one of the most celebrated and accomplished aviators of her time. Yet little has survived to tell the story of her life.”

Dubbed Britain’s Queen of the Air, Ms Scott, who was born in 1922, became Europe’s first woman pilot to fly solo around the world and notched up a remarkable tally of 100 world records for speed, endurance and long-distance flying.

She won more than 50 coveted flying trophies and was also the first woman to fly over the North Pole.

In 1968 she was appointed an OBE.

Daughter of Alderman Harold Hopkins, a Worcester City Council grandee who ran a city centre bakery, Ms Scott enjoyed her first taste of flying in the early 1930s when, as a birthday present, she was among children chosen as passengers to accompany Sir Alan Cobham’s famous Flying Circus when it performed on Pitchcroft.

The experience was to change her life.

Her great grandmother had been one of the first 11 pupils to attend Alice Ottley and Ms Scott was an athletic youngster who enjoyed sport and, as she admitted later, had schoolgirl dreams of becoming an Olympic gold medallist or an actress.

Indeed, after basic nursing training during World War II, she then drifted into acting and modelling and adopted the stage name Sheila Scott, retaining it for the rest of her life.

It was not until 1959 that nostalgic recollections of her Pitchcroft flight came into play and, at the age of 37 and out of the blue, she suddenly took up flying.

Ms Scott shook her friends one Sunday after lunch by announcing: “I am going to learn to fly.”

And so she did, to such great success that she went on to win one trophy after another and break no fewer than 104 flying records during the 1960s and early 1970s.

Her record-breaking solo flight around the world in her single-engined Piper Comanche in 1966 was an epic 31,000-mile and 33-day journey.

The following year Ms Scott broke the London to Toronto record while Amy Johnson’s London to Cape Town record and Jean Batten’s Australia to England record also fell to her.

There were many who felt Ms Scott’s world record-breaking exploits brought such reflected glory to the city she should have the Freedom of Worcester conferred on her.

But this was not to be, possibly because of some personal history.

After leaving school Ms Scott had little to do with the city of her birth and made only occasional return visits.

It was rumoured she never got on with her father’s second wife and moved out of the family home to live in London.

In the wake of her flying career Ms Scott was dogged by financial troubles and in the 1980s was forced to sell treasured mementoes and trophies from her amazing feats to pay for treatment in a long fight against lung cancer.

One she eventually lost, dying in London’s Royal Marsden Hospital in October 1988 at the age of 66.

Now the campaign is on to make the name of Sheila Scott fly again.

If you can help, The Hive on October 28 is the place and date for take-off.