Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, a young lady from Bourne was invited to a dance held at the officers’ mess at RAF Wittering where she met her future husband.

She was Mary Gibson, daughter of local corn merchant Richard Boaler Gibson and his wife Frances who lived at The Croft in North Road, a large house standing in its own grounds with a tree-lined drive that he had built as a family home in 1922.

The young officer was Maurice Heath, a graduate of the Royal Air Force College at Cranwell who was destined to become Air Marshal Sir Maurice Heath, Chief of Staff, Allied Air Forces, Central Europe. They were married at the Abbey Church in 1938 and the RAF provided a guard of honour at the ceremony.

Between tours of duty at home and abroad, the Heaths became regular visitors to The Croft where Richard Gibson was a generous host who kept a good table and always gave them a warm welcome. There were family parties at Christmas and during the summer months when guests gathered round the tennis court to play and to picnic.

Gibson had extensive farming interests in South Lincolnshire and he had hoped that his son-in-law would leave the RAF and take over the house and the business but it was not to be because Heath was dedicated to the service where he remained for almost forty years.

Maurice Lionel Heath was born in London in 1909 and brought up in India where his father, Lionel Heath, a distinguished painter of miniatures, was Principal of the Mayo School of Arts in Lahore. He came from a long line of artists stretching back to James Heath in the 18th century, a contemporary of Hogarth and historical engraver to King George II.

Heath himself had a natural aptitude for drawing but chose instead a career with the Royal Air Force and after leaving Cranwell in 1929, he saw service on the North West Frontier of India, the first of many tours of duty abroad. He spent much of the Second World War as Chief Instructor at the RAF's No 1 Air Armament School and in 1944 he was given command of the Lancaster bomber station at Metheringham in Lincolnshire, home to the highly regarded 106 Squadron whose performance gave him first-hand knowledge of the effectiveness of Bomber Command's training.

While he was at Metheringham, a member of his squadron, Sergeant Norman Jackson, was awarded the Victoria Cross for trying to reach and extinguish a fire in the wing of his aircraft by crawling along the outside of the fuselage. Heath's own leadership at Metheringham brought him a mention in despatches and he also developed a great respect for his Commander-in-Chief, the legendary Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris.

After the war, he was posted to the Air Ministry as Deputy to the Director General of Armaments, moving on in 1948 to command the Central Gunnery School. From 1950 he served as senior air liaison officer in New Zealand, returning after two years to take charge of the Bomber Command Bombing School where the RAF was on the threshold of radar-linked nuclear delivery. Then in 1955 he returned to the Air Ministry, first as Director of Plans and then as Deputy Air Secretary.

Heath's appointment as Commander of British Forces in the Arabian peninsula in 1957 gave him unified command of navy, army and air force operations in both the Gulf and East Africa. Chief among his tasks was to direct SAS operations in Oman in support of the Sultan and his skills were further tested by revolution in Iraq and the murder in 1958 of the young King Faisal II.

In 1959, Heath was appointed Commandant R A F Staff College, Bracknell, a post which he held for two years before moving to his final appointment as Chief of Staff, Allied Forces, Central Europe, a NATO post then based at Fontainebleau, at a time of east-west tension following the Cuban missile crisis. He retired from the R A F in 1965, a year before President de Gaulle withdrew France from NATO 's military command and forced the alliance to seek new headquarters in Belgium.

On leaving the service, he became a working director of a London firm of estate agents but was also involved with a finance company and was a highly successful appeals director for King's College Hospital and Medical School. In 1977 he was appointed Deputy Lieutenant for West Sussex but retained links with the RAF through his presidency of the Storrington branch of the Royal Air Forces Association.

Heath was a Gentleman Usher to the Queen from 1966 to 1979, helping to organise functions at Buckingham Palace. He was made an Extra Gentleman Usher in 1979, on reaching the retirement age of 70. He also served as chief honorary steward at Westminster Abbey and was closely involved in the 1973 wedding of Princess Anne to Captain Mark Phillips. He was appointed OBE in 1946, CBE in 1957, CVO in 1978 and KBE in 1962.

Maurice Heath was a tall, well-built man with strong views and after retiring he kept himself fit by gardening and mentally active by writing to The Times when he felt that things needed saying.

His marriage to Mary Gibson lasted for fifty years and they had a son and a daughter. After she died in 1988, he married his second wife, Lisa Cooke, a colonel's widow, who died in 1996. Before he died at Pulborough in West Sussex two years later, Heath left instructions for his ashes to be buried at Bourne because he had such happy memories of his times with the Gibson family at The Croft and had always regarded this town as his second home. They were duly brought here and interred with Lady Gibson and her parents in the family grave which can be found close to the perimeter wall of the town cemetery at the South Road end.

The Croft ceased to be a family home in 2004 and has now been converted into a community centre for tenants of the bungalow estate for elderly retired people which has since been built in the grounds.