HAMPSHIRE RAF veterans proudly marched through Romsey yesterday to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Air Forces Association.

Led by musicians from Basingstoke's Salvation Army, they accompanied standard bearing representatives from the 21 branches of RAFA and youngsters from the Air Training Corps squadron in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

Before the service at the Abbey, the Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire, Mary Fagan, reviewed the standards.

She was then greeted by the vicar Canon Neil Crawford-Jones and a host of civic dignataries.

The vicar told the crowded congregation: "We give thanks to God for the peace and freedom we enjoy and we recall the courage and dedication that preserves that peace.

"We recall the courage and self-sacrifice who fought to preserve our nation and the whole world from tyranny and evil.

"Give to us, the many, who owe so much to the few, grace to value and protect the heritage into which we are entered, so that peace, freedom and justice can grow and flourish for us all.''