Sir – I read with great interest your article last week concerning the death of Mr Richard Jones (Farewell to a hero of Battle of Britain), one of the last of the few and a man to whom this country will forever be indebted.

Your readers may not know that he was not the only Battle of Britain fighter pilot to have lived in Witney. When I served on the town council from 2003-2007 I was fortunate to regularly sit opposite Mr Malcolm Lucas (everyone addressed him as Mr Lucas, to have called him Malcolm would have seemed presumptuous).

Although he was in his eighties, his attendance record was as impeccable as his attire and he never complained about having to walk the flights of stairs to get to the meeting room at the top of the town hall.

For these reasons, and knowing that Mr Lucas’ health was gradually declining (he died in 2007), I proposed in the spring of 2006 that he should be made mayor for the final year of the council’s term.

Provided that the incoming deputy mayor would be willing to attend functions in his place, I thought this would be a suitable way to honour Mr Lucas and that the people of the town would thoroughly approve. Alas, my fellow councillors rejected my proposal and Chrissie Curry became mayor.

The penultimate paragraph of your article quoted the secretary of the Battle of Britain Fighter Association as saying that ‘about 60 veterans . . . are still alive’.

I sincerely hope that the communities in which they live fully appreciate the enormity of their contribution to our nation’s history.

Paul Slamin, Witney