A man who died when his aircraft came down in a wartime mid-air collision has finally been honoured on an Oxfordshire war memorial.

It is 63 years since Eric Pickin and the other six crew members of a Lancaster bomber lost their lives on the night of March 31, 1944.

His name has now been added to the other 177 names engraved on Witney's memorial at Church Green of servicemen who died in combat during the First and Second World Wars.

No one knows why it has taken so long, but his daughter Anne Laws is just glad that he has been honoured at last. She said: "I think my mother had asked in the past but maybe the fact that he was born in Sheffield had something to do with it.

"But he was a resident of Witney from 1937 and married my mum, who was from Witney, in 1939. When he was killed he was still a resident of the town.

"I was just three and a half when he died and I have some vague memories of him, but it was wartime and he was mostly just coming and going."

Between 40 and 50 people came to pay their respects at an official ceremony at the war memorial, including family, friends, town councillors, members of the Royal British Legion and representatives from RAF Brize Norton.

Mr Pickin had joined the volunteer reserves when war broke out in September 1939. He was an air gunner and in July 1942 went to Canada for pilot training.

In March 1944 he was a member of 622 squadron based at Mildenhall in Suffolk and was piloting his bomber home after a bombing raid on the German city of Nuremberg, crossing Belgium as he flew back to base.

He lost his life as a result of a Halifax bomber making a 60 degree turn, causing a collision at 21,000 feet. The crew of both aeroplanes were killed, except the rear gunner of the Halifax, who lived to tell the tale after escaping capture and eventually being picked up by the Americans months later.

Earlier this year, Anne and her husband Don, of Early Road, Witney, visited Hotton war cemetery in southern Belgium where her father is buried along with the rest of the Lancaster crew. The raid was the last in the Battle of Berlin, part of the intense bombing of Germany, which saw 55,000 Allied aircrew killed.

Don Deaney, of Witney's RBL, said: "I understand that a lot of research goes into checking the names of people on memorials. It did take a long time.

"I became involved last October, doing a lot of writing, phoning and using the Internet and Witney Town Council were very helpful. The important thing is that Eric's name is now there."

Although their mother Margery died in 1997, both Anne and her sister Sue Strode, of Tarrant Avenue, Witney, have the family photos to remind them of their dad. One of them shows him during pilot training. On the back he wrote: "Everyone recognised me in the air by my fancy pig-skin helmet."