FEATURE: Dambuster George '˜Johnny' Johnson - a hero still attached to his Lincolnshire roots

He looked up to the skies above a wind-blown car park in Woodhall Spa and briefly adjusted his bow-tie.

He might have been 91 at the time but he’d heard the roar of the Lancaster bomber engines long before people half his age.

Suddenly, the Lancaster swooped into view, dipping under the cotton-wool like clouds.

A tear appeared in his eye and rolled down his weather-beaten cheek.

“You know,” he said, “Seeing the Lancaster again...it always brings a tear to my eye.

“It brings it all back.”

Those were the first words Johnny spoke to me.

Just a few minutes earlier, he’d been ‘just another guest’ at the 70th anniversary of the Dambusters’ raid in the Second World War.

A small, slight man, he mingled with other guests.

Someone suggested I should speak to him.

“You’re the reporter from the paper, aren’t you?” he said, pointing in the general direction of Johnny.

“He’s got a story or two to tell you.”

I didn’t have a clue who Johnny was.

“He’s the last surviving British Dambuster,” the man said. “And he was born near Horncastle. Bravest man alive he is.”

I went across and introduced myself.

Johnny hardly heard my first question above the noise of the Lancaster’s engines.

A modest and instantly likeable man, he said he rarely spoke about that raid.