As an official photographer for the Royal International Air Tattoo at Fairford, I had the pleasure to meet and photograph a man who, in my opinion, is a true hero. George "Johnny" Johnson.  

Now, I am not a man who gets excited about meeting important people, but when I approached Johnny Johnson I felt privileged to be shaking his hand.  That is a strange feeling for me, as I feel everyone is special for so many different reasons, but this man, along with many others who went to war for our freedom, stands out from the crowd.

To cut a long story short, after talking to the Red Arrow pilots and mentioning to them that Johnny Johnson was here, they were eager to meet him. Seeing them interact gave me much pleasure and a good feeling that today, 70 years after such bravery, today's pilots still felt men like Johnny were important enough to take time out from a very busy and demanding schedule.

On that day I saw many 'important people' want to meet this hero and when I took pictures of him with the Red Arrows it was a pleasure to see some very important people getting in on the photographs.

This spring, George 'Johnny' Johnson releases an autobiography of his life and the part he played in the Dambuster raids; it's called The Last British Dambuster and I wish him much deserved success with it.

My last word is a thank you to his son Morgan, who I am sure is responsible for including one of my photographs of his dad and the Red Arrows team in the book.  I feel very proud to be associated with this book and to have met two very fine gentlemen.

Thank you for reading. 

Johnny Johnson-20287A photograph of George "Johnny" Johnson shaking the hands of a couple of Red Arrow pilots in the front garden of the Royal International Air Tattoo in 2013