Letter: Eager warrior

Sir, My father-in-law managed to join the army in 1914 at the age of 14, only to be discharged almost immediately when his father discovered the attempt (letters, 13, 16, 20 November). At 18, at the end of the war, he joined the Navy, serving for some years before being discharged with a medical condition "that would get worse".

Undaunted, he knocked a year off his age in 1939, and saw service in France, blowing up ammunition dumps ahead of the German army after the fall of Dunkirk.

His medical condition caught up with him in his eighties.

DEREK GRIFFITHS

Church Stretton, Shropshire