D-DAY veteran Patrick Churchill was entertained by the RAF Falcons on Friday as they parachuted onto the Leys in Witney to commemorate VE Day.

Despite being up until 2am watching the General Election coverage on television, the 91-year-old former Royal Marine Commando was up again at 7am putting on his medals and beret ready to take the salute from the team of RAF parachute instructors based at RAF Brize Norton who were carrying out their first jump of the year.

Pupils from local schools also attended the event.

Mr Churchill’s son Frank, Churchill who also lives in Witney, said: “The town council asked dad if he wanted to go down to The Leys and take the salute. He was quite surprised and quite chuffed to be asked.

“It was an excellent display delivered with pinpoint accuracy. He was still in Germany on the day itself in 1945 guarding SS troops so he didn’t get to celebrate. But the symbolic importance of remembering it means a lot to him.

“Dad was very impressed and said the parachutes were much better than the old ones he used to have.”

Mr Churchill, pictured right, recently shot to fame after Witney Allotment Association tried to make him leave his allotment because they said it was not looked after. But a team of Army cadets stepped in at the last month to help him bring it up to standard.

He learned to parachute jump himself as part of his training for the Royal Marines before the second world war, but never jumped in active service.

Mr Churchill joined up in 1942, enlisting in the Royal Marines rather than the RAF because they would let him in aged 17.

He was with the Royal Marines when they stormed Juno beach in 1944 before being attached to the French unit 4 Commandos.

Mr Churchill was demobilised in 1946 and returned to Pressed Steel in Cowley where he had briefly worked before the war, and later at Oxfordshire County Council.

He lives with his wife Karin, 84, who survived the Dresden bombing.

She escaped over the Berlin Wall from Communist East Germany, and was en route to Calcutta to join up with Mother Teresa, when she came to Oxford to learn English where she met Patrick.