FIRST World War veteran Robbie Burns, who is 102, spoke to a captivated crowd about his battlefield experiences.

Mr Burns, who now lives in Wokingham, gave his talk at

the monthly meeting of the

PROBUS Club, at the Royal British Legion, in High Wycombe, on August 20.

He was a soldier in the 7th Cameron Highlanders and served from 1914 to 1918. He fought in the Battle of the Somme. Mr Burns said: "The trenches were just holes in the ground about six or seven foot high. When the rain came down we were working in mud. The mud was sometimes half-way up to our knees. We just sat with our backs against the trench until there was a calm."

Mr Burns was asked how the German soldiers felt when they were captured. He said: "If I had been a German, I would have been generally glad to have been captured and taken away from the atrociousness."

He remembered the first time he saw the Germans using tanks, adding: "When we were out there at 4am we could hear this noise and wondered what it was.

"It was still going on in daylight, so I put my head up over the top and saw the tanks."

He added: "They built them three times better than we built them in this country."

Mr Burns also spoke about the young men who were shot for running away.

His eyes filled with tears when he said: "Imagine talking to someone and then they were suddenly gone, and then seeing another fellow getting blown up. Imagine witnessing that as a young 17 or 18-year-old, running away -- frightened half to death -- and then he gets shot."

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