War veteran celebrates 90th birthday

A war veteran who later took hundreds of Windsor children to school has celebrated his 90th birthday with a big party in the town.

Harry Graves welcomed 70 guests to his birthday party at the United Reformed Hall in William Street, Windsor, on Saturday, including his 92-year-old sister. During the morning he recalled how he started life in Wapping, describing himself as a 'mudlark' and the naughtiest boy in the town until a talent for painting earned him a scholarship to art college.

Bombed out of his home in 1941 he came to Datchet to stay with relatives, getting a job delivering for Stow's grocers in Peascod Street in Windsor before the army claimed him.

He served as a driver, seeing action with the Eighth Army in the desert and across Italy, before travelling through Austria, Greece and Yugoslavia. It was 1946 before he returned home to his wife Emily, who he had not seen since their one day together when they married four years earlier.

A job with A. Moore coach company soon made him a familiar figure, particularly with the children he used to drive to school.

He said: "If I saw a child who was late and had missed the bus I would stop for them whether it was at the stop or not. I do not think I was supposed to but I do think it made me popular."

His skills as a painter made him equally popular.

He is a founder of Windsor Photographic Group and Clewer Leisure Painters which are still flourishing today and which he still attends.

He said: "I discovered I could paint at 10 and had a go at Drake's Mayflower. I would spend hours on the docks recording what I saw."

He still spends as much time as he can in his studio.