When I discovered I had a spry 91-year-old Spitfire pilot living just down the street from me in London, I felt an obligation to both serendipity and history to make a film about him (despite his protestations that he had ‘never done anything’).

Jack was an intriguing change from the typical war veteran seen on screen. After several months as a fighter pilot, where through luck or circumstance he never fired a shot (or had a shot fired at him). So the RAF put him to work instead as a flying instructor, out of harm’s way, where, as he said “I never even saw a dead body.”

Jack was an intriguing mix: sagely thankful for avoiding the horrors of war, yet at the same time, wistfully gung-ho about ‘missing the action’.

From towing gliders in Canada to flying supplies into post-war Hiroshima, Jack was full of so many great stories. But I was keen to do more than a ‘talking head’. So when I found that the airfield he flew from in WW2 was still home to a functioning aero club, it was an unmissable opportunity to take the film beyond reminiscing in an armchair.

Jack died in 2018, and I’m so, so glad to have shared so many cups of tea with him, capture his memories on camera, and give him one last adventure. A copy of the film is now held by the RAF Museum archive, and with his family.