OXFORDSHIRE'S most famous grandson is preparing for a busy year.

Keith Brooks is going to spend a significant proportion of 2017 in a Buckinghamshire village while the entire population celebrates his grandfather.

That is because Edward Brooks, one of only two men from the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry to win the Victoria Cross during the First World War, and who lived his entire life after the war in Oxford, was born in the village of Oakley just 10 miles east of the city.

More than a century after he left, villagers still remember Edward Brooks as a hero of the parish.

This year on April 28 they will lay a paving stone in his honour exactly 100 years from the day he earned his VC by capturing a German machine gun in Fayet, France.

After rushing forward during a trench raid, Company Sergeant Major Brooks shot one of the machine gun crew with his revolver and bayoneted another before grabbing the weapon and turning it on the Germans.

On Friday and Saturday, April 28 and 29, a committee of Oakley residents have planned two days of celebrations around the paving stone laying to honour the parishioner.

Mr Brooks, who lives in Horspath, has been visiting Oakley once a month to help the committee with their planning.

He has dug up archive material on his grandfather, including an interview he gave to the Oxford Mail in 1942, and has also starred in a short film about Edward Brooks commissioned by the Oakley VC committee which will be screened at the village hall over the weekend.

He said: "The amazing thing about it all is all the effort they are putting into it – they all seem happy to do it, it's been brilliant.

"I'm just glad he was born in Oakley."

The planning is being led by Oakley Parish Council chairman John Mole.

He said: "It really is quite exciting: everybody has got the fever and we've been doing a lot of research.

"We've always been very proud of Edward Brooks being from the village. He moved away in his teens [to work at a biscuit factory in Reading] but he was always seen as a son of Oakley.

"People from the village were all brought up to be proud that he came from here."

The celebrations actually start on Monday, April 10, when the paving stone goes on public display at Aylesbury Vale District Council offices for three weeks.

The stone, bearing CSM Brooks' name, rank and regiment along with the date of his courageous actions, has been provided by the Department for Community and Local Government as part of a nationwide centenary scheme honouring all First World War VC recipients.

The Edward Brooks stone will be laid in Oakley on Friday, April 28, and officially unveiled by Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire Sir Henry Aubrey-Fletcher.

Thame Royal British Legion branch and Buckingham MP John Bercow have also been invited.

The weekend-long exhibition, funded by an £8,000 Heritage Lottery Fund grant, will then open at the village hall, telling the story of Edward Brooks and all the others from the village who fought in the First World War and including artefacts donated by the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum.

Mr Mole added: "We don't look at the county boundary as a boundary."

Mr Brooks' video documentary about his grandfather will also be shown at the hall as part of the exhibition.

He added: "I thought the video was fantastic – I don't know where the war footage came from but they make it look very special."

Mr Brooks has also been charged with getting contact with his grandfather's eight surviving grandchildren and 20 great children, who are now as far flung as America and Australia, to invite them to the celebrations.

Following the April events in Oakley, on July 29 Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Board will put up a plaque at Edward Brooks' former home in Windsor Street, Headington where he lived with his wife Elsie and their four children.

That ceremony will mark 100 years to the month since the war hero returned to Oxford and was carried through the city in a parade led by Headington Silver Band.

Blue plaques board secretary Eda Brooks said: "Edward Brooks was the only Oxfordshire resident, not counting members of the university, to get the VC during the first world war and one of only two in the Ox and Bucks.

"He was regarded as a great hero at the time and still is: what he did was remarkable even by VC standards and we felt that in these four centenary years we aught to make our contribution."

Finally in September, the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock is opening a second two year section of its First World War exhibition which will include the story of Edward Brooks' heroic deeds.

Mr Brooks has already spent years trying to get more recognition for his grandfather and other war veterans.

In 2015 he paid more than £1,000 to have a new memorial stone made for his grandfather’s grave in Rose Hill Cemetery and had it unveiled in a formal military ceremony including troops from Edward Brooks Barracks in Abingdon, named after his grandfather.

But he said he was happy to keep doing more to honour those who risked and gave their lives for their country.

He joked: "The only downside is that I had to buy a new suit," but added: "It should be a good few days – it's nothing less than he deserves."