WHILE on holiday in France, a man stumbled upon a museum room named after an RAF mechanic from Evesham.

Robert Gill, from Greenhill, Evesham recently was on holiday in the Champagne region in Northern France. Whilst there he stumbled across a small museum in a rural village called Vraux, which had a room dedicated to an Evesham born mechanic who had been based nearby in 1940, and had helped collect artefacts for the museum after the war.

Mr Gill said: "The coincidence of finding this in a little place in the middle of no-where, it's quite unusual."

Vraux is near to Chalons-en-Champagne. The museum is dedicated to the wartime activity at the local airfield during the Battle of France in May/June 1940. The Royal Air Force sent the Advanced Air Striking Force (AASF) there in 1939 to help the French stem the advance of the German invasion.

Unfortunately the French forces and the RAF were overrun despite the gallantry of the aircrews and the whole area was then occupied by the Germans until the liberation in 1945.

After the war, a group of local French people established a memorial and a museum in the memory of everyone who had served there in 1939/40 and every year the RAF send a small delegation to take part in the commemoration ceremony.

Mr Gill said: "The curator of the museum, Gerard Faux showed me around the museum and in particular he showed me around the Ronald Bright Room.When I enquired as to why the room was named after Ronald Bright he said that Ronald had been a member of the RAF squadron based at Vraux in 1939/40 and after the war he helped create the museum by donating various items of RAF equipment and artefacts. Ronald sadly died about 20 years ago, however, he had put so much time and effort into this, the museum committee decided to honour him by naming a room after him."

Ronald joined the RAF aged 17, in 1937.

"Monsieur Faux told me that Ronald was a motor engineer who came from Evesham and I thought he could well have a connection with Bright's Garage on Cheltenham Road in Evesham. After a bit of research I managed to track down Ronald's daughter who confirmed that her father was indeed the same man."

This year is the 80th anniversary of the RAF's involvement in the Battle of France and a special commemoration will take place at Vraux which will be attended by the Air Attache from the British Embassy in Paris together with an RAF contingent. Ronald's daughter has been sent an invitation.