FORMER Spitfire pilot the Rev James Maclelland-Farmborough celebrated his 95th birthday in style.

A resident of Manor Mead retirement home for Church of England clergy in Beacon Hill, Mr Farmborough, better known to family and friends as “Big Mac”, has lived there for 10 years with his wife, Peggy.

During WWII, Mac qualified to be a pilot, trained pilots, and served in 118 Squadron, flying Spitfires and Mustangs in 1945, at about the same time the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan.

The Spitfire could fly for three-and-a-half hours with extra tanks, but the Mustang could fly for more than 11 hours and served as long range escort for the daylight bombers.

He recalled on one flight, a pupil misread the petrol gauge. He said: “We had not gone far before we had run out of petrol. To see our propeller stationery in front of us, indeed silent, was not welcome.

“I took control of the plane and headed towards a field with a nice long stretch into the wind. As we were coming down I noticed an electric cattle fence, I was able to clear it and land in the top half.”

Mac rose to become a flying officer in the RAF and escorted Sir Winston Churchill to landmark conferences to negotiate the terms of the end of the war at Potsdam and then in Berlin.

After the war, he studied at Magdalene College and Ridley Hall theological college in Cambridge, and the bible missionary training college in Bristol. Mac and Peggy married in 1952 and after working in several churches in England, took a ship to Brazil with their three young sons.

He worked as a missionary for nearly 20 years in South America, first in Brazil, before spending 12 years in Chile. Mac returned to work in the UK and was a representative for the South American Missionary Society.

Towards the end of his career he was rewarded an MBE in recognition of his services.

“My father has never worn his MBE,” his son Mark said. “He is such a modest man, he says he never had an occasion to wear it. I hope one day, someone says to me ‘You are so like your father’.”