As churches across the country and beyond planned to ring their tower bells 75 times on August 15, members of the church of St Peter and Paul at Honing, near North Walsham, were checking and rehearsing the procedures and found the rope for the tower bell had broken.

Although the determined church members were disappointed not being able to ring the church bell, they came up with a ‘brilliant’ idea and the church warden, Peter Williams, and the church treasurer, Major-General Sir William Cubitt decided to ring handbells as an alternative.

Mr Williams said: “We were very disappointed at first but felt it was important that we should do something to commemorate a very special day.

“It was only a gesture but one that mattered, especially to the descendants attending. Those commemorated were Captain Bernard Aldridge, 1st (Malay) Field Ambulance Royal Army Medical Corps, who died in captivity, and Lieutenant Thomas Cubitt, 5th Battalion The Royal Norfolk Regiment who was a prisoner of war on the Burma-Siam Railway for three years and survived and who later lived at Honing.”