ROYAL British Legion Oxfordshire vice-chairman Mike Henderson has been given the organisation’s highest honour.

Mr Henderson, who takes a leading role in repatriation ceremonies at RAF Brize Norton , received the Certificate of Appreciation last week. He was showing John Farmer, the Legion’s national chairman, the memorial garden and bell on the edge of the town when he was presented with the award. People gather at the memorial garden to pay their respects to fallen service personnel whose bodies are flown to RAF Brize Norton.

The £30,000 bell was unveiled on June 30 for Armed Forces Day and was paid for by donations and a grant from the Oxford Mail’s Gannett Foundation.

Mr Henderson said: “I am absolutely over-the-moon with the honour and I certainly did not expect it. It was for the work I have done in the past 20 years.”

Mr Henderson said the tour for Mr Farmer went “exceptionally well”, adding: “I think he was kind of taken aback by the garden and the bell and the fact that we had raised so much money such a short space of time.”

Mr Farmer described the memorial bell as an “outstanding achievement.”