My father, Colin Ward, who has died aged 90, spent much of his working life as a herdsman on farms in the home counties and Norfolk, but also had a period as an unwitting ‘virgin soldier’ during a violent interlude in Singapore in the early 1950s.
Colin was born, and grew up in, the village of Kimpton in Hertfordshire. His father, Tom, was a tailor and his mother, Drusilla (nee Kirby), a housewife. Colin left St Mary’s secondary modern school in Welwyn at 14 and worked as a clerk in the accounts department of the plastics division of ICI at Kimpton Hoo, until, aged 18, he was called up to do his national service.
