Sam Alper

When the Second World War was declared, he volunteered for the Navy and found himself serving with the Fleet Air Arm where his electrical engineering training was put to good use rewiring Swordfish biplanes.

[2] On the cessation of hostilities, Alper went to work for his brother Henry in his newly established caravan company, Alperson Products, in Stratford, east London.

[citation needed] Those first caravans were, in Alper's opinion, too expensive and he decided to try to produce a cheaper, lighter version that could be towed by an ordinary family saloon car.

[citation needed] The following year he tried something a bit more ambitious, a 10,000-mile (16,000 km) trip round the Mediterranean towing a caravan behind a 3.5-litre SS Jaguar.

Roads in Yugoslavia and Greece were found to be impassable so he had to go part of the way by train, and in the Sahara he had to be rescued by local tribesman who dug him out of the sand.

[6] In 1970 Caravans International decided to cater for the small car owner and introduced the Sprite Cadet, just 8' 6" long and with a door located unusually at the rear.

Recognising the up and down nature of the caravan industry and its seasonal character Alper spread his interests further, developing the first successful table football game, Soccerette, he built yachts for a time and was also responsible for the first popular brand of roadside diner in Britain.

[9] Based principally on Britain's A-roads, they were ideally suited to the new breed of travellers taking to the expanding road network and soon Little Chefs with their now iconic logo were springing up all over the country.

With little or no commercial competition they proved remarkably popular and within ten years the brand had been subsumed into the Gardner Merchant group of companies which eventually became a part of Trust House Forte.

In 1966, Alper bought a group of old farm buildings in Linton near Cambridge with a view to turning them into a conference, banqueting and cultural centre.

Privately, he was a great opera enthusiast and a collector of modern art and was himself a talented sculptor in stone who appreciated fine architecture.

Later, he also established the Curwen Print Study Centre, an educational charity permitting people from as young as seven years of age and of all abilities to learn about different forms of printmaking.