Danuta couldn’t help but admire his stoicism in the light of such a life-changing injury. ‘My brother was not so lucky,’ she murmured. ‘Where did you meet him?’

He poured them both a glass of wine, and after taking a sip, he leaned back in his chair and regarded her thoughtfully. ‘Aleksy was with me at flying academy in Poland. We trained together and got our wings on the same day. I stay in Poland, but Aleksy want to fight the Communists, so he went to Spain.’

He took a deep swallow of wine. ‘I follow him, but we return to Warsaw just as Russians occupy the east, and Germans invade the west. He find his home destroyed, but no sign of you or rest of his family. Everyone in neighbourhood was scattered, he could get no information and feared you were lost – as my own family had been lost.’

Danuta felt a chill of remembrance and looked at him questioningly.

‘My father was shot for leading the local resistance, and our home and estates in Kresy were stolen by Russians. I manage to get my mother and sister out and onto a ship, but it was sunk by a German U-boat.’

He wiped his eyes with a large handkerchief, took another swig of wine and then continued, his voice rough with emotion as he slipped into his mother tongue.

‘At that time many thousands of military, naval and air force personnel fell into Soviet hands and were sent to Gulags in Siberia. The Russians didn’t want to risk the educated classes rising against them, so Aleksy and I knew we had to escape before we too were captured. Like many before us, we managed to cross Romania and find our way into France where we joined the Armée de l’Air. It was vital to block the German invasion through northern Europe, and they were glad to have us Poles fill their ranks.’

‘But why France?’ she asked in Polish.

‘A Polish government in exile had been set up there after the German invasion into Poland. But then France surrendered to Germany in 1940, and we were advised to get to Britain where the government had agreed to establish an independent Polish Air Force under British control.’

‘That couldn’t have been easy,’ murmured Danuta, who’d experienced her own perilous escape through France. ‘France was overrun by then and every port was heavily guarded.’

Stanislaw smiled and twirled his moustache. ‘Aleksy and I managed to come to England on a fishing boat. Some came from Gibraltar, and there is a story about three who flew their Bloch MB fighters from France to Tangmere.’

‘They were lucky not to be shot down,’ said Danuta.

‘War is all about luck,’ he replied with a shrug.

Danuta took a sip of wine. ‘When Aleksy came to England, he was billeted with Peggy at Beach View before he joined Bomber Command. Where were you?’

‘I was sent to Blackpool to learn how to fly British fighter planes.’ He chuckled and twirled his moustache. ‘They were very modern compared to what we had in Poland and France, with retractable undercarriages we kept forgetting about.’ He grinned. ‘We had many belly-flop landings, which didn’t do our reputation or our planes any good.’