ABOUT 30 or 35 people, and a dog, gathered beneath a streetlight at 8.49pm on Saturday evening to remember the minute 73 years earlier Pilot Office William McMullen had crashed to the ground behind them.

We can’t possibly know what was going through his mind from the moment over Middlesbrough when he realised the outer port engine of his Lancaster bomber was on fire to the last split second of his life as he plunged nosefirst from 600ft into that inescapably hard farmland to the east of Darlington.

But we do know that he had had every opportunity to jump – as his six crew members had safely done along the A66 from Elton to Sadberge. We do know that not a single civilian was harmed, and we do know that the official report into the crash concluded: “It is noted that the pilot retained control of the aircraft sufficiently long enough to avoid crashing into the built-up area of Darlington.”

And we know that in 1945 the townspeople christened him “the gallant airman” and regarded him so highly that they changed the name of the crash site from Lingfield Lane to McMullen Road.

Which is why people gather at the precise moment on January 13 each year to pay tribute. This year, it was five degrees and dry – positively balmy, in fact, as this gathering usually stands for a minute’s silence in the teeth of a snowwind firing droplets of rain as hard as bullets.

But this year as we gathered beneath the streetlight, it was no longer a grassy field behind us but a building site.

There are now two housing developments churning up the area where McMullen died. One is private, by Taylor Wimpey, and is called Millfields. This is a nice, pastoral-sounding name, although there has never been a grinding mill anywhere near these fields. The reference must be to the nearby Paton & Baldwin plant, which was once the world’s largest wool-producing factory and which had a profound and positive effect on the local post-war economy. The Millfields street names are going to reflect P&B’s history.

The second development, which looks on to McMullen Road, is Darlington council housing. It is to be called Earl Carlson Grove.

Carlson’s is a great story, the opening chapter of which is the same as McMullen’s: he was a Canadian airman who flew from Middleton St George. In 1947, Carlson became a founder-member of Durham Wasps ice hockey club and was one of the greatest players of his day. He married a local girl and stayed in Darlington until his death in 1970.

He definitely deserves to have a street somewhere in the town named after him, but on Saturday there was disappointment – even anger – that the 21st Century’s chance to memorialise a 20th Century hero in the exact area where he died had not been taken.

Darlington council said: “Developers are required to propose street names and the council either approves or amends their suggestions. We always welcome suggestions from members of the public and these names can be used where a developer has not submitted suggestions.”

It seems none of us was awake enough to propose Lancaster Way, Goosepool Avenue or Gallant Airman Close at the appropriate time. But it would be nice to think that someone in the street-naming stratosphere was flexible enough to make sure this extraordinary wartime story is appropriately marked when the developments are complete in time for McMullen’s 75th anniversary.