A MEMORIAL to the Second World War Spitfire bought by the people of Darwen has been officially unveiled.

The large steel arm holding a model Spitfire - one-twelfth the size of a real one - commemorates the huge fundraising effort in the town, when £5,000 was raised by public subscription to buy the aircraft for the RAF.

It had been built by apprentice engineers from the town’s metal fabrication firm WEC and had taken more than two years to make.

The Spitfire was accepted into service in 1941 and lasted about six months. It is thought it was shot down somewhere over Holland.

The memorial was officially unveiled by Darwen MP Jake Berry in a ceremony attended by a number of local dignitaries, members of the Royal British Legion and the apprentices who had built it on Saturday, before wreaths were laid at the site as part of the town's Remembrance ceremony.