The last Tommy says: ‘It was a waste of time’

Harry Patch, 109, recalls his career in Kitchener’s army

Two years ago, when he was a mere spring chicken of 106, the last surviving Tommy, Harry Patch, was invited to inspect the Lewis guns at the museum of his old regiment, the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, in Bodmin, Cornwall.

To help jog his memory, a young major in his party fumblingly demonstrated how to change the magazine. ‘I said: “Major, you’d have to be quicker than that in action,”’ recalls Harry in his soft Somerset burr. ‘I said: “Here. Give me the Lewis gun and set your watch.” So I took the magazine off and put a new one on. “There. Now how long was that?” I said. “Two seconds,” they said.’

How marvellous it is to be in the presence of living history. At 109, Harry may be only Britain’s second oldest man but he holds distinctions far more extraordinary than that: he is the only man left to have fought at Passchendaele; the only one left to have gone over the top.