Percy Lucas

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Percy Belgrave "Laddie" Lucas, CBE, DSO, DFC, (2 September 1915 - 28 March 1998), was a legendary much-decorated English airman, left-handed golfer, author and Member of Parliament (MP).

In the Second World War he was one of the RAF's heroes, idolised by the rank and file, including famously the Australian Keith Miller. Joining in June 1940, he was assigned to the famous 66 Squadron in August 1941. During the Battle of Malta he commanded 249 Squadron. In 1943, he shifted to the command of 616 Squadron; later, he commanded the fighter wing at RAF Coltishall. After a 'rest period' on ground duties, in December 1944, Laddie took over command of 613 Squadron (City of Manchester) equipped with Mosquitoes, based at Cambrai-Epinoy, NE France.

After the war he was encouraged to fight the 1945 general election as a Conservative and stood for Fulham West, where he lost to the sitting MP Edith Summerskill, one of Labour's most prominent women in government following their landslide. At the 1950 general election, he was elected as Conservative MP for Brentford and Chiswick. He held the seat at the next two elections, but retired at the 1959 general election.

He wrote a popular column for the Sunday Express, and was the author of several books on golf and airmen around the world, as well as an idiosyncratic but much-admired history of the Battle of Malta.

He had been a golf champion in school (the British Boys Championship) and captained the 1949 Great Britain & Ireland Walker Cup team. After the war he was an administrator on the Sports Council. Although an amateur, he was influential in the founding of the professional tour in Europe in the early 1970s. At the time of his death he was serving as a vice president of both the Golf Foundation and the Association of Golf Writers. He and his family have had a long association with Prince's Golf Club, Sandwich in Kent. His father, P. M. Lucas, was one of the architects of the course in 1904 and the first club secretary, whilst Percy Lucas himself was actually born in the original clubhouse. There is even a commemorative plaque at Prince's by the 4th tee on the Himalayas course which marks the spot where he used his local knowledge of the coure to make an emergency landing after his Spitfire was crippled over northern France during the War. Today an annual golf tournament, the Laddie Lucas Spoon, is held each year at Prince's for boys and girls aged 8-13 years.

He was married in 1946 to Jill Addison, the sister of Thelma Bader, wife of his fellow flying ace Douglas Bader, of whom he wrote a best-selling biography.

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Francis Noel-Baker	Member of Parliament for Brentford and Chiswick 1950–1959	Succeeded by Dudley Smith