Ashby Pastures
Note: This map only shows the position of Ashby Folville village within the UK. If anybody can kindly provide a more exact location, and hopefully a bit more information, this advice will be much appreciated.
ASHBY PASTURES: A temporary aerodrome?
Operated by: Mr J S ‘Steve’ Squires
Location: Near Ashby Folville, 5nm SSE to SE of Melton Mowbray
Period of operation: Spring of 1936
NOTES: I love this story. Steve Squires, a bus driver by profession, built the Mignet Pou-du-Ciel G-AEIO working all hours and carried out his early taxying and pre-flight tests here. It seems that permission was denied to carry on further after his machine dashed around in a mad fashion delaying the arrival of HRH Prince of Wales on a private visit to the area. Presumably also landing at this site?
Steve kept on going though, resuming trials at SANDY LANE in May. His first flight on the 28th May was dodgy to say the least and his second flight soon resulted in a take-off crash with the aircraft being written off.
Far from giving up Steve then built a Luton LA-4 Minor G-AFIR which he flew very successfully. It was, I think, exactly such people who eventually formed the back-bone of those creating the Popular Flying Association after WW2 and today their Rallys are by far the biggest, (certainly in terms of aircraft and people attending), GA events in the UK. These days of course, the PFA has been renamed the LAA (Light Aircraft Association).
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