A drain was being dug at the side of the road. There was a big pit - about five metres across and two metres deep. It was filled with a mixture of water and mud. The fencing around it had blown down.

The two boys noticed another of their friends, 7-year old Zoe Brown, playing there.

'We looked up,' Peter recalls, 'and saw her fall in. Her head was bobbing up and down, and all of a sudden she disappeared.'

'It was really scary,' says David. 'Zoe went under and came up again and then went down again.'

'We ran over to the pit,' continues Peter, 'and I immediately jumped into the water and got hold of her and pulled her up.'

David, who was standing near the edge of the pit, was then able to haul Zoe up to safety.

Zoe remembers how frightened she was. 'It was very cold and I thought I was going to die,' she says. 'I was very lucky that Peter and David came to help me.'

But when Zoe got home, her Mum, Sarah Livingstone, was at first angry with her.

'She was covered in mud,' Sarah recalls, 'and I thought she had been playing in puddles again - which I had told her not to do.' 'It was only when I saw the size of the hole and how deep it was that I got a very big fright,' she says. 'We're very grateful and totally surprised that two young boys put themselves at risk to help her.'

Both boys won awards from the Royal Humane Society. Peter was awarded a Testimonial on Parchment, and David a Certificate of Commendation.

Their parents are naturally very proud of them. 'It was a great thing that they did,' says David's Mum, Diane Crawford. 'They just did it and didn't realise how dangerous it was.'

Zoe's Mum, Sarah, believes the incident has brought the families - who are neighbours - even closer together.

'We were a close community anyway,' she says, 'but the boys are more like family now.'