Maldon's Air Cadets are a little closer to buying their first Flight Simulator thanks to a donation from Heybridge Blackwater Rotary Club.

Officer Commanding 1207 (Maldon) Squadron, Flight Lieutenant Ryan Vanhinsburgh RAFAC received the donation from Rotary member Nick Spenceley on behalf of the Heybridge Blackwater Rotary branch. Mr Spenceley delivered a short talk on his father's remarkable escape from a crashing Wellington bomber in 1942.

Mr Spenceley had delivered the same address to Heybridge Blackwater Rotary Club, commemorating the sacrifices made during the last war by bomber command crews, nearly half of whom died in action.

He also described his research into his father's 42nd bombing raid which ended with him waking in a German hospital bed three weeks after his Wellington bomber was shot down, killing the rest of the crew.

'To the end of his life, my father had no memory of how he got out of that plane,' Nick recalls, 'but I worked out that his position as rear gunner that night must have helped him - it was the only position with a direct escape route.'

Maldon Air Cadets are keen to recruit new members, and enquirers can email the commanding officer Ryan Vanhinsburgh RAFAC at: [email protected]