Several times over the years The Mail has revisited the story of Tommy the Dalton pigeon, which flew home to Furness from war-torn Holland during World War Two carrying a secret message.

Tommy was given the Dickin medal - the animal version of the Victoria Cross.

The story began when William Brockbank, who lived at Queen Street, Dalton, entered Tommy in a race from Christchurch on the south coast. A freak storm blew him off course and he landed, exhausted, in occupied Holland.

Holland had been cleansed of its racing pigeon stock by the Gestapo, fearful of the birds' renowned capabilities as messengers.

Tommy was found by a resistance sympathiser, who handed him over to Dick Drijver, a member of the Dutch Resistance. He knew from the bird's leg ring that he was English. He nursed the pigeon, which he named Tommy, back to fitness before letting him fly with a tiny aluminium cannister attached to his leg containing information about a munitions build-up at a factory near Amsterdam.

A German lookout saw Tommy in flight and opened fire. Tommy was hit in the wing but still managed to reach Dalton on August 19, 1942.

Mr Brockbank handed the message to the police and was later informed by the Air Ministry that Tommy had been awarded the Dickin Medal. The factory was destroyed by the allies.

The bird was 'decorated' in 1946 at a ceremony in London attended by Mr and Mrs Brockbank, his daughter Joyce and Dick Drijver. Mr Drijver was presented with two pedigree pigeons, part of a consignment of 2,000 birds given to the Dutch people after the war, to help them re-establish their racing pigeon stock.

Mr Brockbank organised an exhibition about Tommy and the proceeds were used to buy a field in Chapel Street, Dalton, which was converted into a children's playground. The field later became the site of Dalton Leisure Centre.

In 1989, The Mail reported how a pigeon had made its home on a set of Barrow traffic lights. As cars and lorries passed by on Abbey Road, the bird was nesting above the No-Left Turn sign outside the Astra cinema.

In 1990 builders Keith Robinson and Peter Linnerman discovered a baby pigeon and its mother in a crevice in the back wall of Trinity Hall, in The Gill, Ulverston, which they were converting into a house. Each day they checked on the bird's progress, leaving the nest alone until the baby pigeon could fly.