Friday, 12th August 1927 was the "Glorious Twelfth" in terms of it being the first day of the grouse shooting season. A shoot on Sir Emmanuel Hoyle's estate Cotherstone Low Moor took place with a number of birds being shot to be then sold for high prices in the food markets. With this being the first day of the shooting season the birds were in high demand in the top London hotels and clubs so an aeroplane was chartered to fly from Yorkshire to London with a number of the dead birds. It appears that Sherburn in Elmet airfield was used as a collection location for the shoots prior to perhaps just one aeroplane then heading south to London. To enable to the shoot at Cotherstone to get the birds to London an aeroplane was flown from Sherburn in Elmet to a field at Lartington where a make-shift runway must have been created. Two bags of birds were loaded into the aeroplane with the aim of then flying back to Sherburn in Elmet and then on towards London. On take off from the field at Lartington the aircraft clipped a stone wall, landed in the next field but overran into a thick hedge which damaged the aeroplane further. The bags of birds were worth a lot of money. They were taken by an employee of and in a car owned by Sir Emmanuel Hoyle to the nearest railway station and made their way to London by train that day. The aeroplane may have been chartered by the Savoy Hotel though I have yet to prove this. The aeroplane was probably the Yorkshire Aeroplane Club's Moth G-EBLS that was damaged. The pilot was an honorary instructor at the Yorkshire Aeroplane Club at the time. Another aeroplane landed near Helmsley to collect grouse on this days without incident.
Pilot - Mr Earl Bateman Fielden.
Pilot - Mr T Thompson / Thomson.