Joe kept the fighters flying during the war

The nation will this morning remember the brave service personnel who gave their lives for our freedom.

The Queen will lead the annual commemorations at the Cenotaph for the National Service of Remembrance, where she will be joined by David Cameron, party leaders, and representatives of the Armed Forces and faith communities.

In Scotland, First Minister Alex Salmond will pay his respects at St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh.

Today we speak to one man who risked his life defending the country during the Second World War and who will never forget those comrades that never came home.

Saturday, October 28, 1939.

Joe Parker looked at the clock 90 minutes had passed.

The teenager paced back and forth at East Fortune Airfield in North Berwick, aware that the Spitfires should have returned by now.

Just then, Joe, an aircraft mechanic, heard them coming back. As the first plane approached, he spotted that its machine gun had seen action.

As the Spitfire came to a halt, the soon-to-be famous flying ace Archie McKellar jumped from the cockpit and yelled: “We got the b******s!”

McKellar had become the first pilot of the war to shoot down a German aircraft over the British Isles.

Joe and his 602 Squadron colleagues raced to the scene of the crash on the Pentland Hills.

“We were excited as we travelled over,” Joe recalls. “The pilot of the German bomber came out with his hands up and said: ‘You’ve got us’.

“I was taken aback. I didn’t expect him to be speaking English. But then I realised what had really surprised me he had a broad Scottish accent.

“Before he was led away he explained he had lived in Scotland as a child and was proud to have retained his brogue.

“We had been taught to hate the Nazis, so that threw me a bit.”

Joe was quickly realising the war wasn’t going to go quite how he had imagined.

Now he sits in a brightly-decorated room filled with pictures of those famous planes.

Despite being 93, his mind remains sharp and his handshake is strong and firm no doubt a result of the years working on planes and as a tool maker.

Behind him his suit jacket hangs on the cupboard door, his medals shining in the afternoon sunlight.

“We were nave about war,” Joe admits as he leans back in his chair. “I’d joined the auxiliary air force in March 1939 and I was called up in August.

“We were in the canteen when the radio broadcast was interrupted by the Prime Minister saying we were at war. We all cheered.

“It all seemed so glamorous and I thought it would be over in weeks.

“It wasn’t until the Battle of Britain that I realised it wasn’t going to be a great adventure. We were losing two or three pilots a day at that time.

“There was great camaraderie between the men and you would make friends, only to send them up into the sky never to see them again.”

One of those was Archie McKellar, killed the day after the Battle of Britain ended. He shot down 21 enemy aircraft, including five in one day.

“Archie was a great character and we got on well. We were the same height both midgets!” laughs Joe.

“The Battle of Britain changed everything and by the time the war finished I was glad to get out of it. The feelings had changed over the years.

“But war didn’t frighten me. It was nothing to be frightened of.

“Only once did I feel threatened. Three German bombers came over the landing strip and we had to lie flat on the ground with machine gun fire raging all around us.”

The dad-of-three, who has five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, moved to Erskine veterans’ home five years ago. Appropriately, he lives in the McKellar wing.

The move has given him a new lease of life in his twilight years.

If he isn’t giving Miss Scotland a peck he’s starring in TV commercials and adverts like the one on the following page. It’s also Joe’s hands holding the picture in the advert below.

“I have that camaraderie with the other men again,” he smiles.

“When I came here I was looking at life again, rather than just looking out the window.”