“I started work as a 15-year-old apprentice in the Float Shop making the Sunderland floats. I ‘passed’ my apprenticeship in April 1940 and became a tool-maker at Pobjoys, Rochester Airport making Spitfire wings. I was there when the hangers were bombed in August 1940 and the decision was made to disperse the workforce.

I went back to the Seaplane Works on shift work and remember seeing Oswald Short walking down the slipway.

In June 1942 I went to Biggleswade and was called up into the army – R.E.M.E.”

Ewart’s grandfather, George Gill, was a master painter and painted the exterior of Norfolk Lodge, Oswald Short’s house on Borstal Road overlooking the Seaplane Works, the slipways and the River Medway.