A WAR hero from East Lancashire has been made a French Legion d'Honneur - 75 years after the D-Day landings.

Former Scots Guard Ted Davidson was arrived at Normandy on June 6, 1944, and was met with "an inferno".

Then an 18-year-old tank driver, he headed up Sword Beach towards the tactical target of Caen.

Later his unit would push on to Belgium and into Holland, ending up on the Baltic coast of Germany.

And like a number of veterans, his role in liberating France has been venerated by the Gallic authorities.

In a letter to Ted, Catherine Colonna, the French Ambassador, wrote: "We owe our freedom and security to your dedication, because you were ready to risk your life."

For the 94-year-old, of Coronation Avenue Padiham, it's an honour and a privilege.

He told the Telegraph: "It was a nice surprise - there's not many of us left now.

"There's only four still alive from my regiment and we're all in our 90s."

Even today, Ted believes it's important to share his wartime experiences with youngsters and only this week he has been a guest at St Joseph's Park Hill School in Burnley.

"One of the little girls, I remember, asked me whether we used to receive any presents from the Home Front and all I could remember was getting a pair of socks," he said.

"Well a week later, in the post, I received a pair of socks, a pair of gloves and a scarf. And all the children wrote letters. It's lovely that they took the time to do that."

The vice-president of the Burnley and Padiham branch of the Royal British Legion has been gearing up for Remembrance Day services locally.

He will be welcoming home his surrogate grand-daughter, singing starlet Grace O'Malley, who will once again perform at Padiham's Remembrance service.

"Grace has been performing for us since she was 10-years-old and it's always special," added Ted.

He also took part in the Voyage of Remembrance, earlier this year, which took D-Day veterans back to the beaches of Normandy before a gala dinner took place in Portsmouth.

In an interview with the Telegraph in 2014, Ted recalled the first time he made the same journey, inside a Churchill tank, with all around suffering from sea sickness.

He said: "“We thought it was going to be a piece of cake but it clearly wasn’t. I think we got caught with our trousers down a bit.

"And when you saw what was going on you just wondered if you were going to get through it or not.

"I never shook with fright but I was very apprehensive.

"I reconciled myself by thinking I was either going to make it or I wasn’t and that is how I got through the whole of the war."