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from Guardian, Monday June 21, 1999
 Highest Honour - First world war veterans in
Paris
Jon Henley in Paris
Eleven British first world war
veterans, the oldest 104, yesterday attended a ceremony at Les Invalides in Paris at which
the youngest of them, Fred Bunday, 98, was awarded France's highest honour.
 "To be presented with the Legion d'honneur in France
means a great deal to me", said Mr Bunday, [pictured right]
who joined the Royal Navy at 15 and served through the first and second world wars.
Mr Bunday, from Sidcup, Kent, whose father
was a naval pallbearer at Queen Victoria's funeral and whose son recently retired as a
commander in the Royal Navy, said he considered himself "a very lucky young man to be
in good enough health for the trip."
The ceremony, organised by the World War
One Veterans' Association, went ahead despite the death last Monday of William Southern,
100, who served with the 2nd Welsh Regiment at the Somme and Passchendaele and was also
due to be awarded the medal and ribbons by a retired French general, Jean Guinard.
 At the British embassy, William Lorrie, 99, who served with
the Royal Naval Air Services, told the ambassador's wife: "I'm afraid I can't see
you, but I'm very pleased to meet you."
The other veterans had all received the
Legion d'honneur at ceremonies in London last year. The group later laid a wreath at the
tomb of the unknown soldier at the Arc de Triomphe.
Lower picture: schoolchildren
help one of the veterans up the steps of the British Embassy
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