A memorial to Jewish Pinner residents who died in World War Two was unveiled at Pinner Synagogue yesterday afternoon.

The wooden board, which displays the names of 11 servicemen, was unveiled during a Remembrance Day service.

It had been missing for 60 years.

The Cecil Park synagogue has been undergoing refurbishment and, as a result, the senior caretaker and project manager were tiding out a storeroom.

At the back of the room, underneath a pile of rubbish, the two men, John Castle and David Summers, uncovered the memorial which was created in the aftermath of the war.

Synagogue member Brian Eisenberg told the Harrow Times: “There’s no evidence that the board was ever mounted in the old synagogue.

“We were rooting around in the cupboard as part of the renovation and they found it buried in a dark corner and wondered what it was.

“It’s such an exciting thing because it’s got so much personal history and everyone is so fired up about it.”

The synagogue had the board restored and then dedicated its energies to tracing the families of those mentioned on it.

As a result of weeks of hard work by researcher Laurence Harris the family of each serviceman was traced and they attended the unveiling yesterday.

Mr Harris, who has worked to trace Jewish history for the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? programme, said it had been an “amazing pleasure” to find out the stories of the 11 soldiers.

He added: “I was told that one of the names on the board was the brother of one of the members of our community so that’s where I started really.

“One of the first things I found is that some of the information on it was not necessarily accurate. It took me about four or five weeks to find ten of the families – the 11th was a real challenge but we found them eventually.

“The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, it’s really been amazing.

“Some of them had information that we didn’t have, and for others I was able to provide information that they didn’t have which was personally a really nice thing to be able to give them.”

Yesterday’s service took place at 3pm and was attended by hundreds of people.