Alan Pegler

Alan Francis Pegler OBE, FRSA (16 April 1920 – 18 March 2012) was a British businessman, entrepreneur, railway preservationist and actor.

Born in London on 16 April 1920, he was the son of Francis Pegler, the then Managing Director of the family-owned Northern Rubber Company based in Retford, and his wife Enid, herself the daughter of amateur golfer F.S. Ireland who was written about by Bernard Darwin in his book Green Memories. Raised in the Nottinghamshire village of Sutton cum Lound, he was educated at Hydneye House School, Sussex and Radley College near Oxford.

Pegler gained his Private Pilot Licence aged 17 at Radley, and spent much of his time chasing LNER expresses along the East Coast Main Line. Accepted into Jesus College, Cambridge to study law, the outbreak of World War II meant that he was instead commissioned into the Fleet Air Arm, training to fly Blackburn Skua fighter/dive-bombers. However, a serious illness resulted in his being invalided out to join the Royal Observer Corps. Upset outside active duty, he applied to become an intelligence officer for the Royal Air Force, where he accepted that as his Fleet Air Arm commission was not recognised, he started again in the ranks. By the end of World War II, he was again a commissioned officer in the RAF Photographic Recognition department.

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