Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader CBE, DSO & Bar, DFC & Bar

Back in nineteen seventy aged twenty-two, I returned here to the UK by sea aboard the Greek passenger liner RHMS Ellenis to see both of my aging aunts. Once I arrived I soon realised that the money I had wouldn’t last long. So after I had found a bed in a working mens hostel in a village on the western border of Heathrow (Colnbrook), I started looking for work.

I came across a low paid job on Heathrow airport thanks to my talking to a couple of blokes in the pub across the road from the hostel, as an aircraft cleaner for a small business situated on the south side of the airport – Field Air, that maintained business jets like the Hawker Siddley 125, and provided a fleet of aircraft tugs.

That’s when I met Douglas for…