My great-uncle, Reginald Ellicott, who has died aged 94 from cancer, enjoyed a distinguished postwar career in the RAF, rising to the rank of squadron leader.
Reg was Anglo-Indian, a distinct minority community in India that left in large numbers after the turbulent British withdrawal from the country in 1947. Born in Karachi, he was the son of Archibald Ellicott, an excise inspector, and his wife, Vivienne (nee Ellicott; they shared a surname as they were cousins), a civil servant. From 1940 the family lived in Bombay (now Mumbai) where Reg attended Christ Church high school. They sailed for Liverpool in 1949, settling in Clapham, south London, later that year.
