THEY were amongst the youngest pilots to serve in the RAF during the Second World War and their friendship lasted a lifetime.

Now the private art collection borne out of this remarkable bond is set to reach the market for the first time.

The striking cache of more than 20 paintings and bronzes doesn’t just encapsulate some of the finest work by Alastair Michie, the self-taught son of Anne Redpath, it also speaks of the enduring relationship with fellow flyer Eric Langmead that lasted half a century.

It’s been put up for sale by Langmead’s son, Dr Peter Langmead, following the deaths of his mother and father. “Alastair Michie and his art were always a fixture of our household,” he said.

Michie was born in 1921 in St Omer, France, where his Inverness-born father James Michie worked as the private architect to a wealthy American. His parents had married a year earlier and Galashiels-born Redpath, now regarded as one of Scotland’s finest 20th-century painters, assisted in her husband’s work during those early years. The family – now including younger son David, who would also become a professional artist – moved back to Scotland in 1930s, settling in Hawick.

From high school, Michie won a scholarship to study architecture at Edinburgh College of Art, but the outbreak of the Second World War interrupted his studies and he became one of Britain’s youngest night-fighter pilots, serving with distinction over Germany and occupied territory in reconnaissance aircraft and striking up a friendship with Langmead.

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After the war, Michie was reluctant to resume his architecture studies, but it wasn’t until the age of 40 that he went into painting. First he worked as a freelance illustrator and graphic designer, a turn that saw him become a fashion draughtsman for London magazines.

He moved to Wareham, Dorset, in 1950 and turned towards painting after visiting the Venice Biennale in 1962, two years after his father’s death and three years prior to that of his mother, whose own painting style had been influenced by the way her tweed designer father used colour in the cloth he created.

At the Biennale, Michie took in the works of American abstract expressionists including Mark Rothko, Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell. It had a profound impact on him and a solo exhibition of his large acrylics followed at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh in 1964. Within a decade his reputation was international, with pieces entering museums in Brazil. The Barbican Centre in London showed his sculpture in the early 1980s.

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Through all this time, his friendship with Langmead remained. Returning to civilian life, he became one of British Airways’s longest serving captains and the collection he made of Michie’s pieces helped support the artist through lean periods.

When Langmead died in 2006 – two years before Michie, who always remained in Dorset – his widow Pat retained the collection until her death earlier this year.

News of the sale, to be held at southern English auction house John Nicholson’s later this month, comes on the same week that the UK marked Armistice Day, with Remembrance Sunday taking place today and the collection includes pieces that speak to wartime experience.

Blues, an abstract interpretation of a pilot’s view over allied fields at night, is described by John Nicholson’s as “one of the centrepieces of the Langmead collection”.

Meanwhile, another shows poppies in a landscape. The former, completed in 1961, is expected to attract bids of around £600, while the latter, dated 1985, has an estimate of £150-200. The collection also includes scenes of the land, sea and the human body. There’s a study of an artist’s model, a still life study of white flowers, a river.

OTHER works include Equilibrium 1, Cool Green, When the Sea Froze, and his bronze Nike of Samothrace, which is inspired by the statue of the goddess of victory that is one of the most celebrated works of Hellenistic art on display at the Louvre since 1884.

Langmead’s son says that despite the very personal connection between his father and the painter, it’s now time to open the works they shared to a broader audience.

“My father valued Alastair highly, both as an artist and a friend,” he said. “It was a privilege for him to collect these works and is fitting that they continue to bring pleasure and inspiration, as well as a deeper reminder of the lasting impact that the Second World War had on these courageous, yet hopeful young men.”

The lots will go under the hammer at John Nicholson’s Fenhur saleroom on November 24 as part of its fine painting sale.