IT WAS on a fateful day back at the start of the 1930s that a young Worcester girl took to the air from Pitchcroft to enjoy her first taste of flying.

She joined other local children as lucky passengers aboard Sir Alan Cobham's famous "Flying Circus" for what turned out to be an exciting experience that was to have a hugely significant impact on the adult life of little Sheila Hopkins.

She was the daughter of Worcester baker Harold Hopkins but went on, in the adopted name of Sheila Scott, to become arguably Britain's greatest woman aviator ever, and certainly Worcester's most famous daughter of the 20th Century.

Dubbed Britain's "Queen of the Air," this international flying ace 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.

Scott was born in Worcester in 1922 and was a pupil of the city's Alice Ottley School for 12 years, distinguishing herself particularly as an athlete. Her great-grandmother had been one of the first 11 pupils to attend the Alice Ottley.

Scott was to recall vividly in her autobiography, I Must Fly, the excitement of that day when, as a small girl, she was taken aloft for a joyride in the sky as part of her birthday treat. Sir Alan Cobham carried scores of paying passengers, mainly children, aboard his plane on short flights from Pitchcroft that day.

She admitted, however, that she was not a born flyer and had schoolgirl dreams of being famous instead as an Olympic gold medallist or as an actress. When she left school during the Second World War, she undertook some basic nursing training and became an ambulance volunteer attached to the Royal Navy.

After the war, she "drifted" into acting and modelling, adopting the stage name "Sheila Scott" which she was to retain for the rest of her life. A five-year marriage was dissolved.

It was not until 1959 that nostalgic recollections of her Pitchcroft flight perhaps came into play when Sheila, then 37, suddenly took to flying - "by accident". She shocked her friends one Sunday after lunch by announcing "I'm going to learn to fly" - and so she did, to such great success that she went on to win one trophy after another and to break no fewer than 104 flying records during the 1960s and early 1970s.

Among the 50 trophies she collected was the De Haviland Cup, which she won on her first attempt at competing in the National Air Races of 1960.

Her record-breaking solo flight around the world in her single-engined Piper Comanche aircraft was in 1966 - an epic 31,000-mile and 33-day journey. The following year she broke the London to Toronto record and was the first woman to fly over the North Pole. She also broke Amy Johnson's London to Cape Town record and Jean Batten's Australia to England record.

She later underwent more training to gain British and American licences to fly commercial aircraft, helicopters, seaplanes and air balloons and became the first British woman civilian pilot to fly through the sound barrier.

But amid all her courageous feats and successes, she also suffered some frightening traumas, such as forced landings and engine problems.

In 1968, the US National Aviation Club conferred on her its "Salute To Women" award, and in the same year the OBE was bestowed on her by the Queen. In 1971, she took part in experiments for the US Space Agency NASA, and in 1974 was the subject of an Eamonn Andrews This is Your Life TV show.

Scott's father Harold Hopkins, who had a large bakery and dairy business in Broad Street, Worcester, became a long-serving city councillor and alderman of Worcester, and there were many citizens who felt Sheila's world record-breaking exploits had brought such reflected glory on the Faithful City that she should have the Freedom of Worcester conferred on her.

It was not to be, however, perhaps because of some personal history. After leaving school, Scott had little to do with the city of her birth and made only very occasional return visits - and did, of course, change her surname. It was rumoured that she never got on with her stepmother, Alderman Hopkins' second wife, and this may explain her virtual self-imposed "exile" from Worcester, living mostly in London.

Nevertheless, the City Council did at least honour her to a degree in 1969 by having her portrait specially painted by the eminent local artist E. Waldron West. It was on public display in Worcester Guildhall until recent times but I am disturbed to discover it is again out of sight, returned to the City Art Gallery collections in Foregate Street.

In 1972, Sheila also returned to her old school, the Alice Ottley, as guest of honour of the staff and pupils. It was at the height of her fame when she held more than 100 world records.

In the wake of her flying career, Scott was dogged by financial troubles and was forced in the 1980s to sell some treasured mementoes and trophies from her flying feats, especially to pay for treatment in a long fight against lung cancer - a battle she eventually lost.

She died in London's Royal Marsden Hospital in October 1988 at the age of 66.

n Fond personal memories of Sheila Scott are held by her cousin John Turner of Powick, whose late mother Kathleen was the sister of Alderman Harold Hopkins and, of course, aunt to his daughter Sheila. "I virtually grew up with her because she came to live at our house in Sunnyside Road, Worcester for a time when her parents separated and she was attending the Alice Ottley School. She was quite close to my mother, and I knew her from an early age. She was a few years older than me and rather mothered me.

"On Sunday afternoons too, when my parents John and Kathleen Turner rested after lunch, Sheila was assigned the task of taking us for walks and shepherding us along the river and into the countryside. I liked her but, as is known, she did not get on with everybody, and there were even some relatives who were not comfortable with her.

"Sheila moved away from Worcester around the time of the war and only visited the city occasionally afterwards, though she would call on my mother and relatives at Bredon."

John Turner spent his career with the Worcestershire and Hereford-Worcester county councils, mostly in planning.