RETIRED dentist and aviation enthusiast Ken Ellwood has died at the age of 91.

Born in Leeds, he was brought up by his grandparents for the first 12 years of his life in the Cumbrian countryside.

He moved back to Leeds in 1935 to live with his parents and started at City of Leeds School.

After leaving, he went to work for West Yorkshire Coal Sales before signing up for the RAF. He served from 1942 to 1946. After initial pilot training in Miami, Oklahoma, he volunteered for transfer to the Glider Pilot Regiment in 1944, which suffered heavy losses during the D-Day campaign.

At the end of the war, he spent many enjoyable months flying Tiger Moths, including registration R-5172 that he later purchased in 1994. After restoring it to original RAF colours, he continued to fly into his 89th year out of Breighton Airfield near Selby.

He obtained the necessary qualifications at Leeds Technical College in 1948 to study dentistry at Leeds Dental School and qualified in 1953, winning the Percy Leigh Gold Medal for clinical dental surgery and the Charles Rippon Silver Medal for the most distinguished dental school student.

Shortly after moving to Skipton in 1953, he married Kath and started work with the School Dental Service. He won a scholarship to study for a year in the USA at the Eastman Dental Dispensary in Rochester, New York State, before returning to Skipton in 1955.

After six years with the School Dental Service, he joined Brian Hargreaves at his practice in Sheep Street. Brian retired a few years later and Ken continued to work as a single practitioner until his retirement in 1985.

His passion for photography and friendship with local historian Geoffrey Rowley led to him accumulating a large collection of old photographs. Ken subsequently had six pictorial collection books published on Skipton and the Dales.

As member of the Yorkshire Aeroplane Club and Glider Pilot Regiment, he was acutely aware of those who lost their lives during the Second World War. His combined interests of photography, local history and the RAF enabled him to research local air crew who died during the war, and their deaths were commemorated with a series of articles in the Craven Herald.

In 1972, along with son, John, he assisted Joe Fusniak, Mike Close and Harry Smith in building the Memorial Cross on Buckden Pike commemorating the Polish air crew who died there in a crash. The cross is now maintained by ATC (Skipton) Squadron.

Through his children’s interest in music, he became involved with Skipton Band and was president from 1972 to 1984, during which time the band played in the National Brass Band Championships finals twice in London.

With charm, humour and imagination, he was a source of huge enjoyment to his four children, David, Deborah, John and Peter, and more recently grandchildren Emily, Elizabeth, George, Rory, Alicia, Angus, Katie and Rachael.

A funeral service will be held at Holy Trinity Church, Skipton, at 11am on Monday.