ERIC "Ginger" Carter has embarked on a new challenge this year.

The former fighter pilot, who was based in Northern Russia during the Second World War, has enrolled at Kidderminster College on an information technology course.

The 79-year-old from Chaddesley, who was made an Honorary Colonel of the Russian Squadron and was given the wings of the Russian Airforce, took up the computer challenge in September.

The motivation came when his grand-daughter Abigail started to advise him on computers!

It is another example of Mr Carter's nature, to rise to whatever challenge is put in front of him.

From a very early age, Mr Carter realised he wanted to fight for his country against the Nazis.

Born in Kings Heath, Birmingham, he worked for an accountancy firm before joining the Royal Air Force in 1939 as a flight sergeant.

Flying the Spitfire in the 615 Squadron, Ginger's first duty was to defend Liverpool and its dockyards against German bombers.

Due to blackouts and a petrol supply which would only last two hours, the pilots could be caught with little or no fuel and nowhere to land as airstrips were blacked out.

He said: "We would often send out May Day signals as we were running out of fuel and needed to land, but, of course, they couldn't put the landing lights on for us on the airstrips as we were in the middle of a blackout for the raids.

"We were often told we'd have to ditch the planes in the Irish Sea and bail out. Luckily the raids always finished just as we were out of fuel but it was always a close shave."

After leaving Liverpool, Mr Carter was sent with 35 pilots to help the Russian Air Force deal with Hitler's invasion in 1941.

His job was to protect the Murmansk Corridor, the sea route into the only unoccupied part of Russia.

Among his duties, Mr Carter had to escort conveys carrying supplies into Russia from the West and protect the port of Murmansk against attack. He also escorted Russian bombers and shot down 14 German aircrafts, this time flying Hurricanes.

Mr Carter added: "The temperatures in Russia were freezing, we had to keep starting the engines up every 20 minutes because otherwise they would freeze!"

The former engineer now lives a slightly more sedate lifestyle with his wife Phyllis but is still involved in British Legion activities.

And one of his proudest moments came in 1994 when he escorted the Queen on the first state visit to Moscow since the Russian Revolution. A year later he went to Lenin's tomb with John Major to remember the dead.

"Those two trips were fantastic and I was quite surprised how down-to-earth the Queen and Prince Phillip were," he said.