The major role played by an aircraft engineering school was given civic recognition at the opening a special celebratory exhibition.

Mayor of Hertsmere Councillor Peter Rutledge joined ex-de Havilland Aircraft Company apprentice Mike Ramsden in officially opening the exhibition at the de Havilland Museum, Salisbury Hall, London Colney.

The exhibition features all the types of aircraft designed and built at the company’s Hatfield base over the five decades preceding its amalgamation with Hawker-Siddeley in 1963.

It is located in the only wartime building left on the museum site - the old foreman’s office which was once attached to hangars that contained the famous all-wood twin-engine fighter; the de Havilland Mosquito.

Mr Ramsden, who lives in Welwyn Garden City, is one of hundreds of graduates from the school which he joined as an apprentice in 1946.

He continued with de Havilland for ten years before becoming a technical author, later editor, at weekly aviation magazine Flight.

He is currently vice president of the de Havilland Museum Trust, which operates the volunteer-run museum. He presented the museum with a cheque for £300 as co-sponsor of the exhibition with the University of Hertfordshire Heritage Hub.

Guests at the opening ceremony included Sonja Fillingham, whose late husband Pat was also a de Havilland apprentice, later becoming the company’s chief production test pilot. Over a long and prestigious career, he test flew 120 types of piston and jet engine aircraft.