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There are probably few Derby folk still alive today who remember the day a giant airship flew over their city, dwarfing even the largest buildings. It was certainly a sight to treasure, as four days later the ship was totally destroyed on its maiden voyage. Lynne Sterling talks to 86-year-old Jessie Peffers, of Uttoxeter, who had a special connection to the craft.

On October 1, 1930, thousands of Derby folk were filled with awe as they witnessed the magnificent spectacle of the R101 airship undergoing a test flight across the city.

For Jessie Peffers, however, it was a moment of awe and also intense pride.

She may have been only aged nine at the time, but Jessie knew the importance of this moment.

Over the past four years, her cousin, Marvin Slater, of Cardington, in Bedfordshire, had been involved in the construction of this mammoth aircraft.

“Until I was seven, my family and I had lived in Bedfordshire and I knew all about the airship project.

“In fact, I’d always been able to visualise exactly what the airship would look like because my cousin had made a small replica of it for me, using scraps of metal left over from the construction of the real thing,” she explained.

“From seeing the model I had a good idea of the R101’s shape and structure, although nothing could prepare me for the size of the real thing as it flew over our house. It was immense.”

Former Derbeian Roy Lister also has memories of the event. He recalled that both the R101 and another airship, the R100, carried out trial flights over Derby around the same time, presumably to pay homage to the engineers at Rolls-Royce who had worked on the engine designs.

The R100 also had a second connection to Derbyshire. Among its design team was the talented Ripley-born engineer Barnes Wallis – who later became famous for the invention of the bouncing bomb, honoured in the classic Second World War movie, The Dambusters

The R101 and the R100, were the two biggest airships ever constructed in this country and they were built in direct competition with each other, as the result of a 1924 British government initiative.

The scheme to develop and advance airship design was, in fact, a military project – an attempt to eventually develop an eight million cubic feet ship capable of carrying 200 troops or five fighter aircraft. Initially, though, two prototype airships of five million cubic feet (140,000 m³) were to be constructed using two different design teams, a government team and a private company.

Construction of the R101 began in 1926 under the British Government Air Ministry design team but, unfortunately, problems dogged the project.

Despite a successful 17- hour trial flight, which included the flight over Derby in 1930, four days later the R101 crashed quite spectacularly, in France, on its first official outing, killing 46 of its 54 passengers outright. Two others died later in hospital, with just six surviving.

Jessie remembered that her cousin was absolutely devastated by the news.

“All the men who crewed the airship were from an airbase in Cardington and Marvin knew them,” she said.

“He couldn’t believe that nearly all of them had been wiped out like just like that. It was an extremely sad day for us all.”

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