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An RAF veteran and great-great-grandfather has celebrated his 100th birthday.

Alan Richards, who served in the RAF during World War II, marked the occasion with family at Castle View Residential Home in Caerphilly town.

He was also visited on the day by Caerphilly County Borough mayor Mike Adams.

Mr Richards was born in Trealaw, Rhondda, on June 13, 1923, but later moved to Whitchurch with his parents.

A former Caerphilly Grammar School pupil, Mr Richards was inspired to join the RAF after seeing a news reel of the Battle of Britain – so volunteered when he was just 17.

After joining, he was sent to Canada for training. Upon his return, he was sent to Scotland with the RAF Coastal Command. This saw him regularly fly to the Arctic Circle to compile weather reports.

In 1943, Mr Richards was flying back from the Arctic when he entered dense fog and his radio stopped working while flying over water.

In what was a perilous situation, he dropped his plane 1,000ft and the fog disappeared – revealing the sandy Achnahaird Beach in northern Scotland, which he was able to land on – avoiding a fatal disaster.

During his time at the RAF, Mr Richards married his late wife, Dorothy Edna, when he was 21-years-old and the couple had two children – Susan and Ian.

They later went on to have six grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren and two great-great grandchildren.

After the war, Mr Richards returned to the Howells department store in Cardiff, where had worked prior to joining the RAF.

He later went on to work in the packaging industry, becoming the first person in Wales to work with polythene, which can be used to make bags.

He went on to set up his own polythene bag company, which was based near the old Cardiff docks and employed more than 30 people.

Upon his retirement, he took part in charitable work for the RSVP charity.

Despite being in the RAF during the war, Mr Richards never saw action. He did on occasion see other German aircrafts during his travels to the Arctic – however these planes were unarmed and the pilots would often give him a friendly wave.

Son-in-law Phil Barkley described Mr Richards as a “very clever man” and said: “I worked for him for 19 years and we never rowed. I had a wonderful time working with him”.