Lee Spicer was walking his dog Patch along Herring Lane in Pinchbeck when he heard someone shouting.

Mr Spicer said: "At first I thought it was just kids playing so I carried on.

"Then I could make out the words 'Help me. Somebody help me'."

He followed the sound which took him round the back of a house belonging to Peter Bray, former chairman of Lincolnshire County Council in 2002/3.

Mr Spicer looked round the garden but couldn't see anything at first.

He said: "Then I saw he was in the pond.

"I thought he was dead. He looked white as a sheet.

"I didn't know how long he had been there. It could have been a lot worse."

Mr Spicer eventually managed to get Mr Bray, who is in his 80s and had undergone knee and hip operations, out of the pond before helping him back to the house.

Mr Bray said: "I was walking past the fish pond and I caught my foot. I fell full length and was lying there for ten minutes.

"The water was cold and I had my Sunday best on but I still went to church after that."

Mr Spicer visited Mr Bray the following day to check that he was none the worse for his ordeal.

Mr Bray said: "If he had not come along my wife would never have got me out. He rescued me."