Joy Lofthouse was one of the last two surviving ‘Spitfire Girls’ of the wartime Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA).   Together with her elder sister Yvonne, she joined the ATA in late 1943 and after training as a pilot went on to deliver single-engine fighters to the Fleet Air Arm in Scotland and to the RAF in the south of England.  Her favourite was the Spitfire and she delivered 50 of them to squadrons.  In the last period of her life she became well known and was immensely popular appearing at many functions and attending air shows.

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