I was recently browsing through a log book and a visitors book, both of which had once been kept on a sailing boat that belonged to my family in the 1980s. Flicking through the leaves I came across a voyage that I remembered from July 1980 when I was part of the crew for a trip along the south-east coast of England with my dad and two others. I was 22 at the time and the youngest by far of the four crew that set off in the 40-foot sailing ketch. The oldest crew member, as I recalled from seeing his name signed in the guest book, was a gentleman of 68 years. As we assembled on the yacht at Ipswich, this had been the first time that I had ever met him. He had been brought along by one of the other crew members, a friend of the family. I remember how, as we prepared the boat for sea, I was quite in awe of René Kitchen for the simple reason that he was the first Spitfire pilot that I had ever met.