THIS week in Down Memory Lane we look back at a wartime Grays incident resulting in the death of an RAF pilot.

I featured this in Down Memory Lane in March with the death of Pilot Officer Peter Stackhouse Gunning, flying a hurricane of No 46 Squadron.

His plane was shot down by the enemy and crashed in to the Globe chalk pit in Grays, with the loss of his life, at 1.05pm on October 15, 1940.

An enquiry at Thurrock Museum by Rachel Umfreville, of Gunning Road in Little Thurrock, instigated some research into the story and it was feature in Down Memory Lane in March of this year.

Rachel and her family have, for the past six months, been on a quest to find out more and importantly resulted in a community effort to commemorate the incident at 1pm on Saturday, October 22, when there will be the unveiling of a plaque to Pilot Officer Stackhouse in Gunning Road.

The Down Memory Lane feature in the Thurrock Gazette also brought to light some fascinating mementos of the crash and two local friends of Thurrock Museum located items that were recovered from the stricken Hurricane.

My featured photograph shows a crude metal crucifix, on which is mounted a small brass cufflink.

One of the workers in the chalk pit recovered the cufflink, and perhaps some parts of the aluminum body of the plane, which he melted and molded, in the form of a crucifix, and affixed the cufflink as a memorial to Gunning.

This had lain in the back of a draw over the last 71 years, but will now be put on permanent display in Thurrock Museum in the Second World War display at the Thameside.

Interestingly, I have been shown some other engine parts engraved with the date of the crash which I hope will one day also come to the museum.