A SPECIAL beer is being brewed to honour a forgotten secret army of Second World War which trained at Coleshill, near Highworth.

Coleshill was the base of the Auxiliary Unit, a last ditch army of sabotage and harassment who would have been mobilised if the Nazis had invaded Britain.

The commemorative ale, based on an authentic 1940s recipe, is being created by pub owner and micro-brewer Alan Watkins, whose Halfpenny Brewery is based at Lechlade’s Crown Inn.

On July 4, when the 70th anniversary of the unit is marked at Coleshill, it is hoped that a bottle of the beer will be buried in a time capsule.

Mr Watkins was inspired by the Second World War history of Coleshill, which is documented on Highworth-based expert Tom Sykes’s website, www.coleshillhouse.com.

Mr Sykes, 32, said: “The idea was Alan’s. I put out an appeal on the website for people to help with fundraising for the July 4 event.

“I had a message from Alan, who said he’d like to help us raise money by putting on a special beer that we could name.

“We hope to put a bottle in a time capsule as part of the commemoration.”

Mr Watkins, who also leases the Radnor Arms pub in Coleshill from owners the National Trust, will donate part of the proceeds of the beer to the commemoration.

Members of the public with an interest in the Auxiliary Unit are invited to suggest names for the brew via Mr Sykes’s website. The final choice will be made by Bob Millard, an 87-year-old veteran of the unit who lives in Cumbria.

Mr Sykes said of the beer idea: “It’s fantastic – it’s a really kind gesture. The recipe selected for the beer is from the 1940s and hasn’t been brewed much since. We’re trying to keep the ingredients as secret as possible.

“Bob Millard will be given a whole list of names suggested on the website, and the final decision will be his.”

Mr Sykes is a freelance marketing manager whose interest in the unit was sparked by his partner, Paula Pearcey. She gave him a potted history of the area when he moved to Highworth. His website was founded in February of last year, and new features and data are added almost constantly.

For example, people who think a loved one or ancestor was a member of the unit can check the database to find out for sure, while a tie-in to Google Earth means locations of Auxiliary Unit bases can be found and viewed.

Small but perfectly formed THE halfpenny Brewery was founded in December of 2008. Its base at the rear of the Crown Inn at Lechlade features a glass wall through which visitors can watch its ales being made. Officially classed as a micro-brewery, it is a revival of a centuries-old tradition of inns creating their own wares. Beers with names such as Thames Tickler, Old Lech and Ha-Penny Ale have won an enthusiastic following as well as plaudits in real ale competitions. The brewery’s website is at www.halfpennybrewery.co.uk Trained to cause chaos for the Nazis THE Auxiliary Unit was founded in 1940, and members were trained until 1944, when the Allied invasion of Europe made a Nazi invasion of Britain impossible. About 5,000 people were trained in sabotage, silent killing and causing chaos. Their role in the nightmare event of Brtitain being invaded would have been to harass and disrupt Nazi forces until reinforcements could be brought from the British Empire to tackle the invaders head-on. It was expected that the life expectancy of Auxiliary Unit members would be numbered in days, with death in combat or under Gestapo torture a virtual certainty. Members of the unit were forbidden to reveal their status to anybody, and many took their secret to the grave, often decades later. In a bitter irony, this secrecy meant some members were thought badly of in their communties by people who believed they were somehow dodging overseas military service.