WHY have we never properly honoured the man who invented the Spitfire?

RJ Mitchell, the designer of the Spitfire and S6B Scheider Trophy winner, has never been nationally acknowledged as one of our greatest design and engineering geniuses. Spitfires built in Southampton and Eastleigh played a major part in winning the Battle of Britain in 1940 and flew throughout the Second World War.

There is a new petition to government to request that the image on the new £50 banknote should be that of RJ Mitchell at https://chn.ge/2ziPrAN

What better way to recognise his contribution to the freedoms we enjoy today than to support this petition, in this year of the 100th anniversary of the RAF?

Dr Henry Goodall

Chair of trustees, Friends of the New Forest Airfields.