Charlie Gray (Jeff as he was later known ) left school at 14 and was set for a life as a farm worker in the North of Scotland when World War II intervened.

Chance took him into the RAF as a bomber pilot and his luck held though the war and led him on to a successful flying career in British Airways and Gulf Air.

This is one pilots story and gives a rare insight into the changes in aviation from war time Britain through the introduction of the wide body jets which are now most peoples only exposure to aviation.