First World War veteran Arthur Halestrap calls himself "one of the little ones who got away", writes Nick Evans.

Arthur knows he is lucky to be alive when so many of his friends and fellow soldiers lost their lives in the green countryside of France that became the muddy killing fields of the Somme.

Arthur, now 102 and living in Kensington Close, Kings Sutton, near Banbury, will relive his memories of the Great War when he returns to the Somme next month.

The former Royal Engineer said: "I tried to join up when I was 16 and had a letter back saying I would be welcome in the Army, but it was subject to my parents' consent and they wouldn't agree to it. But as soon as I was 18, I swore the oath, took the King's shilling and went to France." Arthur was one of those who took part in the famous battle at the Hindenburg Line when British troops repelled the Germans and began the march that led to Allied victory.

Arthur recalls: "I lost so many of my friends and contemporaries at that time.

"Some were in France for only a few weeks before they were killed; others were there all through and came back alive.

"We sacrificed an awful lot for our King and country. I think everyone is subject to their destiny, but I was one of the little ones who got away."

When war flared again in Europe he joined the Special Operations Executive, or Churchill's Secret Army, as it became known. He was based at Bletchley Park, where he worked on the Enigma coding machine an operation that did so much to defeat the Germans in the Second World War.

After 1945 he worked for the Foreign Office and for GCHQ in Cheltenham and was later awarded the MBE.

Arthur will be one of a group of 49 veterans and others who will make the trip to France in July.

Organiser Colin Butcher, 53, who lives in Croughton, near Bicester, has been making the journey for more than 20 years. He said: "We organise two trips every year one in November for the anniversary of the Armistice and one in July.

"It's a labour of love that we do for those old lads who fought and died.

"I shall keep doing it for as long as I am able in honour of their memory. "All the veterans are now at least 100 and it's a minute to midnight for most of them.

"But even after they are gone we will continue to go to France and Belgium in remembrance."

Anybody interested in making a donation to the cost of the battlefields trip or who is a war veteran wishing to join should contact Genesta Battlefields Tours at 10 Portway Drive, Croughton, Brackley NN13 5NA.