RETIRED cinema projectionist and former RAF airman Sidney Griffiths enjoyed taking to the skies again at 85 as he took flight in a Spitfire fighter plane.

The opportunity arose for the 85-year-old from Westrip to have a 30-minute flight with his old friend Charlie.

“My flight in the Spitfire was unforgettable,” Sidney told the SNJ. “It was a nice clear day and we did a couple of victory rolls.

“My pilot was Charlie Brown, who I met in Malta, when he flew a Spitfire from Duxford to Malta for the ‘Merlins over Malta’ day.”

He added: “I had a Spitfire flying helmet that I wore when flying Austers at Staverton Airport in the 1960s which I donated to the Jet Age Museum in Staverton.

“I asked if I could borrow the helmet for the big day. I wasn’t be able to wear the helmet in the Spitfire as you must have a hard hat these days, but it was good to pose for photographs, in the wartime Spitfire pilots outfit, stood by the aircraft.

Sidney’s RAF career started in 1949 at the age of 18 and he did his initial training at Cardington Bedfordshire.

In 1951 he was posted to a personnel distribution centre at El Hamra in Egypt.

Out of three plane loads of airmen that went out to El Hamra, Sidney was one of only three men who went to RAF Nicosia Cyprus.

The rest stayed in the Canal Zone where fighting broke out between the local population and the British during the Suez Crisis.

Whilst in Cyprus, Sidney volunteered at the station cinema to train as a projectionist.

He would go on to become chief projectionist after others left for England.

In 1958 he was promoted to Cinema Manager and took over the Astra Cinema at RAF Duxford Cambridgeshire.

“Little did I know that 59 years later I would be flying a Spitfire from there.”

He added: “After demobilisation I carried on working on the same station as a civilian chief projectionist at the Astra Cinema.”

Sidney moved to Stroud in 1961 to work as chief projectionist at the Ritz Cinema Stroud that burnt to the ground on June 23, 1961, the site of which became Merrywalks’ car park.