Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Every year scores of Gloucestershire teenagers visit the World War One battlefields as part of their history studies.

But for Amelia, from Cheltenham, that trip was an especially moving journey into her family's past.

Patriotic Albert French was so keen to do his bit for King and country that he lied about his age to join the Army in the late summer of 1915.

He enlisted with the King's Royal Rifle Regiment in Middlesex. He was just 16.

He was killed in action on June 15th 1916 - just a week before his 17th birthday.

Albert's letters home were made into a play and a Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ radio drama, broadcast in the 1980s after his family won a campaign to have his true age added to the headstone of his war grave in France.Μύ

Albert French in his Army uniform

Letters home

His story is also told on a website called Your Loving Brother Albert which features poignant extracts from his letters home.

Now 17 herself, Albert's great-niece Amelia has read some of Albert's letters. "He had a real talent for writing and getting across how life was in the war," she says.

One of them, where he mentions a girl called Violet he met on a visit home, struck a particular chord.

"I can relate to how young he was. It brings it home that he never got to live his life, get married or anything.Μύ

"He gave up everything for his country. I think he was really brave."