A PENSIONER inspired by the bravery of military servicemen and women killed or injured in war is rallying for people to support Kidlington’s biggest ever Help for Heroes fundraiser.

The charity’s co-ordinator for the village, Maureen Morris, has been calling on neighbours to buy tickets for the Battle of Britain Dance and Supper.

As well as honouring the bravery of those who fought against the German onslaught 75 years on, the dinner will raise cash to support brave service personnel, whose struggles Mrs Morris knows all too well.

The 74-year old, who took on her role five years ago, said: “It was in 2010 when I saw the pictures of badly injured or dead young men and women being brought home from Iraq and Afghanistan when I decided to raise money in some way to help the injured and their families.

“I felt for those people as three members of my family had either died or been seriously injured in serving their country.

“My uncle Richard Atkins, a private in the Bantam battalion in the Suffolk Regiment, was awarded the Military Medal – equivalent to the Military Cross which is awarded to officers in the First World War for acts of gallantry and devotion to duty.

“He saved the life of an officer in Ypres when the officer got injured and he carried him to the medical tents.

“Three weeks after receiving the award he was killed in action in Belgium and his body was never recovered. His name appears on the monument in Ploegstreet, a village just outside Ypres.

“My great nephew, Raymond Hewitt, served in the Gulf War and suffered for years from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”

Mrs Morris’s great niece, Anna Key, was serving in Kosovo as a gunner with the British Royal Horse Artillery when a vehicle she was travelling in overturned and her head was smashed against a rock.

She was then airlifted by the American Army to a former military hospital in Portsmouth and was given little chance to live as she spent weeks in a coma.

But after rehabilitation at the H4H Headley Court complex, she has learned to walk and talk again and now runs her own mobile dog grooming business. Mrs Morris said she was “very proud” of her.

Some 150 tickets out of 200 have been sold so far and Mrs Morris said it was the significance of the 75th anniversary that had drawn the village into celebration.

All funds raised from the £20 ticket price will go towards Help for Heroes, and people are encouraged to dress in 1940s fashion or combine red, white and blue. The Battle of Britain was fought over the summer of 1940 when military bases in the South East and London came under attack from the German Luftwaffe.

Retired administrative editor Mrs Morris added: “It really changed the way the war was going because it proved something to Hitler as he did not think our air force was good enough."