TEENAGERS enjoyed a real-life history lesson when they came face-to-face with veterans of the Second World War.

Men and women who fought for their country or worked the land back home met year nine pupils at a veterans’ day at Swanshurst School, in Billesley, yesterday.

Among them was John Davis, a former ammunition driver and a veteran of the rescue mission on the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940.

The 91-year-old, from Rubery, still suffers nightmares of the time a hospital ship was attacked during the mass evacuation.

“We’re hoping with these talks that we will get across the futility of war because no-one wins,” he said. “There is a lot of heartache and loss of life. If we can get it across to the youngsters to be friendly and to trade with each nation perhaps we’ll avert war in future. That’s our hope because it will be their country, their world.”

Alicia Thomas, aged 14 and from Kings Heath, asked Burma Star veteran Harry Ridgway about his 112 days in the jungle. The 94-year-old told her: “It was a different war for us altogether, we just lived day by day, depending on air drops. I was 11 stone 4lbs when I went in and I was nine-and-a-half stone when I came out.”