Darlington showed yesterday that it had not forgotten the heroic airman who, 60 years ago, sacrificed himself to save the town.

A floral tribute was left at the memorial to William Stuart McMullen, on the road that bears his name.

Residents of the area said a number of people stopped to pay their respects, and a Darlington school is including him in a mural of people and events, that are important to the students.

His daughter Donna in Ontario, Canada, contacted The Northern Echo yesterday and said: "I think it is incredible that people over there still remember. I'm very, very honoured that they should do that."

Her father was returning home to RAF Middleton St George from a training exercise on January 13, 1945, when his Lancaster bomber developed engine trouble.

He ordered his six-man crew to bale out but rather than jump to safety himself, he fought with the stricken plane to fly it clear of the last of the houses in the Eastbourne district.

It then crashed into a field at Lingfield Farm. Mr McMullen was killed on impact.

The Northern Echo told his story yesterday and pointed out that, unlike the 40th and 50th anniversaries of his death, no ceremony was planned on the 60th anniversary.

On the 40th anniversary, his daughter visited the town and on the 50th anniversary, a remembrance service was held.

Following yesterday's article, the Echo was put in touch with Mr McMullen's daughter, who was seven when her father died.

She said of her visit in 1985: "I was surprised to feel very comfortable in the place, and I was amazed about some of the stories I was told.

"One woman said she lived in the street and would have been dead if it wasn't for my father, and I found that stunning."

The Darlington Gallant Airman Fund raised £1,000 in 1945, and Donna still has in her dining room the ornate silver rosebowl that the town presented to her mother, Thelma.

Donna said: "I think my father was a person in a set of circumstances who reacted well, but he wasn't always doing heroic things - he was very much human.

"I remember we went tobogganing once, but because he was away at war, I didn't really see him very much."

Flowers were laid at his memorial yesterday and a resident in McMullen Road said lots of people had stopped to pay their respects.

At McMullen House, an alternative centre for education for 14 to 16-year-olds in Hundens Lane, the Canadian airman is being included in a mural.

Teacher Liz Hemingway said: "The idea came from the children themselves.

"The mural shows all the things that are important to the young people.

"We've got Stephenson's Locomotion, the Brick Train, the Market Cross, and we've got pictures from their courses - joinery, painting and decorating and hairdressing and now we've got William McMullen and his plane.

"The children said we must not forget him."