Today 80 years on from the establishment of The Guinea Pig Club, Erskine RAF Veteran Jim Marshall, 98, has paid tribute to the man he credits with giving him back his life.

Sir Archibald McIndoe established the Guinea Pig Club on 20 July 1941 to support young airmen with devastating injuries, the name deriving from the experimental treatment they received.  McIndoe was a visionary surgeon who introduced new techniques for treating the wounded at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, Sussex.

Jim, who joined the RAF in 1941 aged 18,will never forget what McIndoe and the Club meant to him during the painful rehabilitation he went through following his horrific plane crash in 1945, of which he was the sole survivor.

Jim, the only surviving Scottish member of the club for seriously burned Second World War airmen, now lives in Erskine.  Today he remembered a great man whose vision gave the chance of life to so many of the brave young airmen of WW2.