He sold it for five pounds, a week's wages, to the Daily Mirror newspaper, and decided to become a free-lance photographer.

He would regularly get calls from national newspapers directing him to photograph areas of war damage or action.

His most famous image shows the children of hop pickers watching the aerial 'dogfights' of the Battle of Britain.

[5] After the war, he refused offers of staff jobs in the RAF to become a freelance photographer again, working mainly in South East England and Scotland.

[1] According to the British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies, he sent his very last dispatch to the Obituaries section of the Daily Telegraph: "Thanks everybody for a wonderful life, John.