A ST ANNES man battling against serious illness is set to star in a television documentary about his wartime experiences as one of the crew of a Lancaster bomber.

Mike Booth, 76, of Riley Avenue, is a member of the only complete surviving Lancaster crew from the Second World War, and the '"magnificent seven" airmen are now to be featured in a programme being made for TV by an independent production company.

Mike, who is receiving treatment for leukaemia, was a wireless operator and rear gunner in 218 Squadron based at Chedburgh, near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

He told The Citizen: "I am a member of the magnificent seven! Well six and three quarters because another member lost his right leg last year.

"The production company have already done some interviews at the last reunion. They are going to contact me and interview me, and they have interviewed Jimmy, another crew member."

Plans are in place to bring another former colleague over from his current home in Canada.

"What the TV company are suggesting is that we have a reunion with the Lancaster bomber based at Duxford Air Museum, but the crew don't think I'm fit to go down there. They want to bring the Lancaster up to Squires Gate."

The crew came together through a series of almost fateful meetings. Dick Moseley and George Gardiner had met in gunnery school. They got chatting to Mike at an operational training unit, and had also met pilot Les Harlow, who himself had got to know navigator Gussie Gordon and bomb aimer Jimmy Reilly. After being posted to Chedburgh the six were introduced to flight engineer Basil Martin.

"In the crew there was absolutely no rank at all. We have established that everybody can remember at least two points when their life was saved by another crew member," Mike said.

He recalled one hair-raising moment when the aircraft was caught in enemy searchlights and was forced to spiral out of sight from 18,000ft. "We lost the searchlight when we were down at 2,000ft. Jimmy had been firing at it from the front turret and he shot it out.

"When we got back we nearly had a fit because, actually, we had dived into a valley and there were mountains all around at 6,000ft. Another 20 seconds and we would have dived into a mountain."

Mike completed 32 mission between November 23, 1944 and April 20, 1945. After the war his jobs included "just about everything. I ended up as an insurance broker," he said.

He has two sons, Chris and Jeremy, from his marriage to wife Eileen, who lost her own fight against a long illness last year.

But Mike is fighting on, and keeps in touch regularly with his former flying colleagues. "I have wonderful memories," he said. "I was lucky to be picked by them.