A 94-year-old war veteran is looking back and remembering the fallen from the Falklands war on the 40th anniversary of the conflict.

Born in Duncombe Park, Derek Duncombe was a nurse at Heringay Hospital in Oxford with the army during the Second World War, and then, after the war, spent two and a half years in Germany looking after the wounded.

Then seeing an advert for officers in the navy, he applied and after an interview he was made a Lieutenant.

He later became a Lt Commander in the Navy and learnt to fly helicopters at Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose, a navy base that supplied skilled aviators, engineers and flight deck crews to protect Royal Navy Ships and Submarines. It was from here that 824 Naval Air Squadron, a Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm squadron, operated and took part in the Falklands war.

Derek was flying a helicopter at the moment HMS Ardent sank the day after she was attacked by Argentine aircraft.

The day before, on 21 May 1982, whilst lying in Falkland Sound and supporting Operation Sutton by bombarding the Argentine airstrip at Goose Green, Ardent was attacked by at least three waves of Argentine aircraft. The air strikes caused Ardent to sink the next day in the shallow waters of Grantham Sound.

After the war, Derek turned his hand to making scientific instruments “doing things with rockets and things” he said.

In 1968, he was elected a councillor in Barnet, London.

On his retirement, Derek became a familiar sight at remembrance services at Redbrook School and at Coleford where he held the RBL standard at a ceremony to mark those who served in the Falklands war and never returned.

After the war he ran three nursing homes between Ross and Hereford, including one at Goodrich Manor, but has now retired and lives in Redbrook