A similar ceremony had been held at the end of the Great War, and the reason those chosen were there, to receive from the Mayor a special gold wristlet watch, was that they had all been awarded meritorious gallantry awards during the conflict.

Some were so gallant that they did not make it to the event - a service and ceremony at Todmorden Town Hall preceded by a lunch as guests of the Mayor, Coun F. W. Knighton - as they were killed in action after being invited but before it took place.

Hence the event must have been a while in the planning and it was reported on at length in the June 13, 1947, edition of the Todmorden News and Advertiser. Additonally, the newspaper's editorial column, Calder Valley Jottings, commented on it.

Todmorden woman Mrs Linda Crowther has recently re-discovered the official programme produced for the day, the watches being presented by the Todmorden Voluntary Schemes Committee, which had been formed in September 1939 to take care of all the voluntary efforts made by the borough during the conflict.

Her father, Sgt W. E. (Billy) Maden was one of the 16. Sgt Maden had received the Military Medal following his role in action in November, 1944.

The others honoured by the town were Colonel J. L. Lishman, Wing Commander A. Barker, Flight Lieutenant S. B. Harrop-Lomas, Flying Officer F. Smith, Gunner T. Greenwood, Gunner J. Lancaster, Corporal F. McHugh, Private V. Oldham, Sgt D. J. Sharples, Corporal C. Stott (since killed in action), Flight Lieutenant R. Cherry, Warrant Officer A. N. Robinson, Squadron Leader J. Sutcliffe, Leading Aircraftman S. Halstead and Corporal C. Gavaghan (since killed in action).

Even the brief summaries included in the programme, snippets of which were reported in the newspaper, are breathtaking reading.

Guest at the event was Squadron Leader J. L. S. (Stuart) Gill, who had been in the Royal Flying Corps in the first world war and served in the RAF Coastal Command in the second world war.

Squadron Leader Gill, whose family business was Samuel Crabtree's, the sheet metal engineering company at Kilnhurst, urged his fellow employers to remember the sacrifice made by all the town's servicemen in the war and try to help them regain their proficiency at their peacetime jobs.

"Look upon these men, know them and recognise them and in your hearts be thankful, because it is of what they did and what was done by numberless others of their spirit that we are able to be here today - free people in free country," he said.

The sentiments were echoed in the Calder Valley jottings column in the newspaper which said: "It was impossible to appreciate the full impart of the citations away from the noise and heat and smell of battle and the picture which the men would conjure up would be vastly different from that which the audience would picture."

The men were ordinary Todmordians. But in extraordinary times men can do extraordinary things.