A New Malden war veteran was guest of honour at a Dunkirk evacuation memorial service at Dover Castle last week, marking its 70th anniversary.

David Wadey’s memories of the evacuation are being used to open a new exhibition at Dover Castle next year.

Mr Wadey, 91, was conscripted for six months just one month short of his 21st birthday, but that six-month service soon turned into six years.

He recalled that while serving in 4th battalion of the Royal Sussex regiment, he received orders to pull out of Flanders and retreat to the coast via the French town Poperinge.

As an intelligence sergeant, Mr Wadey had a motorbike and the colonel told him to keep going through the town and left him with a “We’ll see you later”.

Mr Wadey said: “After taking a wrong turn in the town, I ended up in a ditch due to an attack by stuka divebombers, before setting off again. I remember seeing the horrible sight of a French horse drawn transport unit which had been caught in the attack.

“On the other side of town, there was no sign of my battalion and so I set off for the beach alone. I went past a portion of an artillery regiment and, on one of the vehicles, I spotted my corporal, Corporal Dawson, and got him on to the back of my bike.”

They were so hungry that they stopped for food at a farmhouse and fell asleep. When they woke up the bike was gone, so they set off on foot.

He said: “We were exhausted. We found a church, entered, lay down and slept. When we woke the next morning, we realised we were lying next to six or eight corpses.”

They eventually arrived at Bray Dunes on May 30 and met up with the rest of the battalion.

The rest of the day was spent on the beach hoping to get a rowing boat out to the ships, which they eventually did, but Mr Wadey was particularly frightened because he could not swim.

He remembered a cup of cocoa on the deck of a boat they were pulled on to, but the next thing he knew after that, they were in Ramsgate.

He said: “Being PBI (poor bloody infantry) we were dead tired as a rule, but we were really exhausted.

“We weren’t heroes, we were just there putting up with it. And we came back. We were the lucky ones.”