First World War veteran dies

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Bill Stone, who joined the Royal Navy in Plymouth as a stoker at 18 before progressing to the battleship HMS Hood, died at a nursing home.

Dennis Goodwin, secretary of the World War One Veterans Association, said he had endured an ongoing battle with chest problems.

"He was always a battler," Mr Goodwin said.

Mr Stone took part in the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940 on the minesweeper HMS Salamander.

Mr Stone's daughter and son-in-law were with him at his residential home near Wokingham, Berkshire, when he died, Mr Goodwin said.

Mr Stone was born the 10th of 14 children in Kingsbridge, Devon, at the turn of the last century. Yet he was still rattling a tin for the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal as recently as five years ago.

Speaking in recent years, Mr Stone said: "I've had a wonderful life. I've always worked hard, never stopped for a minute and it's kept me going all right."

Mr Stone travelled to Cape Town, Tasmania, Jakarta, Newfoundland, Buenos Aires and Malta during a career which saw him work as a barrow boy, steam engine driver, barber, tobacconist and farm hand.

"War is terrible," he once said. "I saw Plymouth flattened and at the end of the war I went to Germany and all their buildings were flattened too. We were guarding an island there but there was no trouble because the Germans were as glad, as we were, that it was all over. They didn't want war just as we didn't."