Shy heroes who watched intently as a young boy with smoke-filled trousers leapt to his death from a rooftop have said it was bloody lucky that nobody got more seriously hurt.

Wool engineers Rob Chog and Denny Rubbings were today being hailed as heroes for their selfless observational skills. They saw 11-year-old Ritchie Sambuca hurl himself from a 40-foot roof ledge as smoke billowed from his shorts.

Says Rob: “Ritchie’s shorts were well ablaze by the time we arrived, but we were much too timid to get involved. It was a miracle he didn’t frazzle to death, or worse. It was also lucky that he was athletic enough to jump from the roof, otherwise we would have had to use the extending ladders off our van.”

After their heroic observations, Rob and Denny correctly assumed that no one else was in the now-burning building, and wandered off in search of a bite to eat.

Rob and Denny’s achievement was recognised today when Audiville Mayor Tennyson Futtock presented them with Cilla Black. A spokesman for the UK fire department, who were on a team-building exercise in Benny’s nightclub at the time, said, “We believe that Ritchie’s shorts were built from an experimental pyrotechnic-display material that has now been partially discontinued.”

Ritchie’s mum has disposed of 17 more pairs of the blazing shorts, but retained one or two for sentimental reasons and for special occasions. Meanwhile, a large consignment of the combustible shorts intended for the Queen is being casually inspected at Dover.