THERE are common threads which bond the 27 remarkable people who've been commended for their acts of bravery in the name of the people of Worcestershire.

Fate is one of them, the chance of them being where they were when circumstances called. Then there's courage. The instinctive response to do something, despite the obvious risk to personal safety, when someone needed it.

The fact that some of the rescue acts performed by normal members of the public were ultimately in vain, we imagine, will rest heavily with those who were presented with their Royal Humane Society awards by West Mercia police.

If it does, it shouldn't. What they did, with little more than a split-second to commit themselves, speaks volumes.

Given that none could call upon the discipline that comes with training and experience as a member of the emergency services, their acts also illuminates all that's best about one human's primal concern for another.

In short, everyone who reads their stories today should ask themselves if they would - or could - have done the same.

If most of us found ourselves in that position and paused, we'd find it very difficult to take the next step - the right one which, at best, leads to uncertainty, but which, at worst, puts our lives in peril.

It doesn't take much to imagine what each must have felt like as they ran to help.

They all have certificates to hang on the wall, but the greater accolade, surely, is the knowledge that the community at large will regard them as remarkable people.