A YOUTHFUL SOLDIER

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 27 May 1915, Page 2

A YOUTHFUL SOLDIER

The parents of Driver William JRobert Neaves, aged 13. of the R.F.A., ■were summoned at Marylebone in respect to the non-attendance of their son at school. Mrs Neaves produced a photograph of her son in khaki, arid asked how she could obey the order, seeing that the lad was on his way to the Suez' Canal? He was a. member of the Church Army Boys' Brigade, and ever since ' the war broke out he had been most anxious to get to the front. The' first intimation she .received that ]■> 9 had icined the army was contained in a post-card which he sent six weeks ago .telling her that he was a driver in the Royal Field Artillery, and was on his way to Glasgow. * She next heard from him on February 27, when he wrote that he was embarking for Egypt the following Thursday, and supposed that he should be out there until the end of the war.

The Magistrate: I suppose you are not very sorry he is on his way to Egypt, are you?— Well, no. He has only another month to do at school.

The Magistrate: lam afragd if that is so the school authorities would be unable to take any effective proceedings against him,