During the Second World War, Keith was a boy plane spotter on the south coast who won a competition by correctly identifying more German aircraft than anyone else. As a result they shipped him off to Canada and taught him how to fly a plane.
When he came back they let him pilot Lancasters and he must have been pretty good at it because he was chosen to do some of the trials on the bouncing bomb with Barnes Wallis and I think that required some tricky flying.
But he didn't actually go on the mission. He happened to be on leave. The story of Keith's war.
In fact Keith reckoned that he never actually killed anyone. His bombs always ended up harmlessly dropped in the sea because the missions he went on could not reach their target.
His career as a gentle bomber was helped by the fact that towards the end of the war he was sent to the Far East but his squadron got split up.
The War Ministry forgot about the half of the squadron he was with so he was stranded in India for six months during which time he learned the joys of being shaved while you are still asleep and filled in the time by transporting food to famine hit areas.
Jonathan Brind