Hero Of The Fleet

William Stone died on Saturday 10th January 2009 aged 108. He received a hero's funeral. Born in rural Devon, he joined the navy during the First World War, travelled the globe just before the British Empire's light began to fade and saw action in some of the most significant sea battles of the Second World War. Afterwards, he returned to Devon to run a barber's shop, an altogether more peaceable existence. Through his years of retirement, he tended his garden, unaware that celebrity was stalking him. As time passed, he became one of a dwindling number of men who served in the Great War. This is his astonishing story.