This was no ordinary Saturday night punch-up outside a pub. At the height of World War Two, with the country gripped in a life or death fight for freedom against fascism and dictatorship, dozens of local drinkers fought alongside black soldiers against white Military Police officers harassing them outside a Lancashire pub. It was just one extraordinary example of the active support shown by ordinary Britons for the thousands of black American troops stationed amongst them during the war - in stark contrast to the vicious racist abuse they received from their fellow countrymen.