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Evan said: "He could have stayed in Pentre - mining was a reserved occupation - but he was desperate to see the world."

He was married but when his marriage failed he wrote to the Navy asking to be called up even though he was in a reserved occupation making Spitfire wings.

It’s possible to buy one’s way out of the draft and into a “reserved occupation.”

Mr Emsley, who found the picture in an old album, says his father had been in a reserved occupation at the outbreak of the war, at the De Havilland aircraft factory in Hatfield, Hertfordshire.

"I'm very pleased that he is getting the respect he deserves at the end of his life, I really am. "He could have sat the war out, because he was in a reserved occupation, but he was determined and he applied about six times.