He spent nearly half a century building some of Britain’s most iconic military aircraft, from the Hurricane to the Harrier and the Hawk.

Jeffrey Tipper, 98, first stepped through the doors of Kingston’s Hawker factory, then in Canbury Park Road, as an apprentice in 1933. By the time he retired in 1981 he supervised a daytime team of 80 workers and a night shift of 12, having taken evening classes in management, paid for by the company.

The air show at Farnborough was a yearly trip for staff, and Hawker had its own spectators’ stand. During World War II, loyal workers stayed on the line even when air raid sirens sounded. Mr Tipper, of Shrewsbury Close, Surbiton, said a man would be stationed on the factory roof with a Lewis gun, and would call down if danger was imminent, he added.

Mr Tipper contacted the Surrey Comet after reading our report of a Harrier, long treasured by Surbiton air cadets, being driven away in January to be restored and sold on. The story brought back memories of assembling the famous vertical take-off jets at the Richmond Road factory formerly used by Leyland.

Transitioning from propeller-driven fighters like the Hurricane to jets like the Hunter and Harrier posed little problem, Mr Tipper said. Mr Tipper has no favourite among the planes he worked on – though on the day the Surrey Comet met him, he wore a tie featuring embroidered Harriers in hover mode.

He was born in Hertfordshire in 1916, and moved to Surbiton after his father was called up for the war. He himself did not enter active service in World War II, a consequence of having been run over by a bus aged 16 and left with, as he put it, “a dodgy right foot”. It was an odd parallel to an injury his father sustained to his right leg in a shooting accident, that did not quite keep him out of his war, he added. The damage did not stop Mr Tipper joining the Home Guard, however, where he made corporal and became an expert in unarmed combat.

He moved to his then-new build home in Shrewsbury Close in 1955 with his late wife, Maisie. A keen painter, her pictures adorn the living room they shared; a leaping ballerina and a Picasso copy, among others. The couple travelled widely in Europe including aboard the Comet, the ill-fated early jet liner. Mr Tipper was worried his wife might not enjoy flying, but on their first trip, appropriately enough for the partner of an aviation engineer, she loved the experience, he said.