In August 1940 Thomas Graham Salter (pictured above), of 32 Albion Road, Luton, was wondering if the over-40s were to be conscripted in World War Two. Not that the possible prospect of the battlefield would be a new experience for him - he had been in the World War 1 fighting in France from September 10th, 1914.

It was not until about three years later, while stationed at Biscot Camp and after he had been wounded in the firing line in March 1917, that it was discovered he was too young to fight abroad even then - and he had first gone to war as a 13-year-old and was holder of the Mons Star (1914 Star).

For Tom Salter was born on December 1st, 1900, at Landport, Hants. Parents Harry and Elizabeth both died while he was a schoolboy and he went to live with an aunt. When war broke out he ran away from school to enlist, resulting in a recruiting sergeant getting a rousting from the aunt about Tom being under age. But at 13 years and eight months old he told his aunt he was going to enlist anyway.

He told the Luton News in 1940: "I was as big then as I am now. My papers show that I enlisted on August 10th, 1914, in the Royal Horse Artillery, and on September 10th, 1914, was with the artillery when it landed at Le Havre. We went on to Le Bassee and we were there until November, when I went down with trench fever. I was sent back to hospital at Southampton until February 1915.

"I was back again with the famous 51st Division in April 1915, and was in the struggles at Festubert, on the Somme, Arras, Beaumont Hamel and Ypres. I got a touch of gas in the first gas attack on Ypres but remained in the fighting line until March 1917, when I was wounded, came home, landed at Southampton and was sent to Ripon Convalescent Camp.

"It was from there that I came to Luton and was stationed at Biscot Camp with the 8th Brigade Royal Horse Artillery. While there my real age was discovered and I was kept on home service until the end of the war.

"I was demobbed in 1919, but after a month I enlisted again in the R.F.A. for four years, went out to India until 1923 and fought in the Afghanistan Rebellion. I came back to Luton and made my home here."

Driver Thomas Graham Salter, 1048935, 106/22nd Brigade Royal Field Artillery was included on the 1921 absent voters' list at 94 North Street, Luton. He married Luton girl Edith May Brown in 1927 and a few years later was living at 32 Albion Road. He died in December 1987.