A WORTH Valley man who first joined the army when he was only 16-years-old ended up being one of the first British soldiers to fight in the First World War.

George Atherton, who was born in 1893, survived the conflict, despite fighting in some of the Western Front's most notorious battles.

He first joined up in 1909, lying about his age to get into the army after running away from home. An officer told him he was too young to be a soldier, but decided to overlook the issue and allowed Mr Atherton to enlist.

During the war he spent four years at the front and was wounded twice. He fought at Messines, the Somme and at Ypres.

He was discharged in March 1919, by which time he was a sergeant in the 6th Dragoon Guards.

In 1938 he joined the Keighley branch of the Old Contemptibles Association, an organisation set up to represent the first British soldiers dispatched to the Continent to fight the Germans at the outbreak of the war.

Mr Atherton was a member of the association until it was finally disbanded on April 27 1968. He was the last person to carry the branch standard when it was laid up at Keighley Parish Church.

He lived in Haworth and Oakworth, and after the war he was a hairdresser then later a textile mill worker. He died in 1981, aged 88.