YESTERDAY IN MELTON MOWBRAY

THE BUTCHER'S LAD, THE BARNSTORMER AND THE GRUBBER. Samuel Summerfield was one of eight siblings born in South Derbyshire in 1894 into a farming family. In 1900 when he was just six years of age, his family re-located a few miles south to the small market town of Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire where his father was to set up in business as a grazier and butcher providing meat for the local market. As a very young man, Samuel set himself the task of teaching himself to fly a heavier-than-air machine in the nearby fields and was later to obtain one of the first ‘British Aviators Certificates’ issued. During the Great War as a Captain in the Royal Flying Corps, he assisted in the training of the brave young pilots, who from all walks of life would fight and die in great numbers over the killing fields of France and Germany. In later years ‘Sam’ was to earn a living ‘barnstorming’ and providing leisure flights with a travelling air circus. At the age of 40 and unmarried  Sam