himself a navy man. In the RAF he was ranked as a Rigger Aero, Aircraft Mechanic Second Class and was given a new service number: 208317. Allingham returned to the Home Establishment in February 1919 and was formally discharged to the RAF Reserve on 16 April 1919. During the last few years of his life Allingham was recognized as the last surviving founding member of the RAF. Speaking with Dennis Goodwin of the First World War Veterans' Association, Allingham said, "It is a shock as well as a privilege to think that I am the only man alive from that original reorganisation when the RAF was formed." Inter-war years Career In addition to his military service as a mechanic, Allingham spent the vast majority of his professional life as an engineer. His employers included Thorns Car Body Makers, Vickers General Motors and H.J.M. Car Body Builders. He started his longest stretch of employment in 1934 designing new car bodies for the Ford Motor Company at their Dagenham plant which had opened only a few years previously in 1931. Family life Allingham met Dorothy Cator in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk in 1918. They married the same year in Romford, when she was 24 and he was 22. They moved to Eastbourne, Sussex in 1961 and remained married until she died there from acute and chronic lymphatic leukaemia. They had two daughters, Betty (born 1921) and Jean (1923–2001). Jean immigrated to the United States after she married an American WWII veteran soldier and died aged 78 in 2001. At the time of his death Allingham believed that Betty had died. He had lost touch with her in the 1970s following a family rift after the death of his wife in 1971; however she was still alive aged 88 when her father died, and living in Stroud, Gloucestershire. In addition to Betty, at the time of his death Allingham had: 7 grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren, 14 great-great-grandchildren and 1 great-great-great-grandchild. Second World War During the Second World War, Allingham was in a reserved occupation and worked on a number of projects. Perhaps his most significant contribution was the design of an effective counter-measure to the German magnetic mines. During his Christmas lunch in 1939 he was called away to help design a system that would neutralise the mines and open the port of Harwich, Essex. Nine days later, he had successfully completed the task. Later