SAUNDERSFOOT War Veteran Duncan Hilling has been reunited with an ‘old flame’ - who looks not a day older than ‘she’ did 80 years ago!

Duncan, a very active 98-year-old from the Pembrokeshire seaside village, visited the Tank Museum at Bovington, Dorset. He went specifically to see a wartime Universal Carrier, the tracked vehicle he drove in World War II. It is also known as a Bren Gun Carrier.

Thanks to Museum staff, Duncan was able to climb aboard, instantly recalling his days with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers.

Duncan served in India and was among the first British Army contingent as occupying forces in Japan, at the end of the war in August 1945. At that time he visited both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, cities destroyed by the first atomic bombs.

Said Duncan: “I felt like I had gone back in time 80 years. I spent two years with the same five carrier drivers. We drove all over India, Japan and Malaya. Sitting in the Bren Gun Carrier, it felt like they were still with me. So many memories.”

Joining Duncan down wartime memory lane were daughters Katrina Pearn and Miranda Davies and son Lyndon, who arranged the visit.