He was a teenager when he was called up for national service in 1952. After just six weeks basic training with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment Ray set sail for the Far East.

"You didn't think about the danger," he recalled. "I remember our ship going past the needles (rocks) off the Isle of Wight and wondering whether I would see them again. But I never thought about it again after that."

It was a six-week voyage on the troop ship. Most of the battalion were raw recruits like Ray. They relieved the hardened soldiers of the Durham Light Infantry, who were surprised at the men replacing them.

"We must have looked quite young because one of them said 'they are taking boy scouts now'," recalled Ray (74), who has lived all his life in Burley-on-the-Hill.

"I was 18 and one of the officers said 'you can't see active service until you are 19', which was two weeks after we got there.

"I told him I wanted to stay with my mates and he told me I was the youngest soldier serving there."

The Korean War was a Cold War conflict between the Chinese and Soviet-backed North Koreans and US-supported South Korea. Around three million people were killed.

Ray was part of the Commonwealth division of the United Nations in a force which contained Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders and Gurkhas, as well as the British. They were based at the 38th parallel, the border between the two Korean nations.

"The temperature was 30 below zero at night and you couldn't fall asleep or you were put on a charge," said Ray. "The funny thing was we slept in tents but none of us caught a cold out there."

After his two years national service, Ray returned home to Rutland. He recalled: "I remember coming home to see the farm workers who were on deferred occupations and they were all riding around on motorbikes. We only got paid £2 a week on national service so all we could afford was push bikes."

After being demobbed, Ray's military service continued in a part-time capacity with the statutory three-and-a-half years in the Territorial Army (TA), which celebrated its centenary last year.

Parade training for the Oakham branch of the TA was held every week at the drill hall in Penn Street.

Shooting practice took place at a firing range at Six Hills and camps were held on Salisbury Plain or the Yorkshire Moors. They were never called into action but were on standby during the Suez Crisis in 1956.

Ray recalled: "We were all local lads and we used to enjoy the camps. I remember one camp at Scarborough. We were sent out on a map reading course one day and we called into the first pub we saw. We didn't get any further than the pub."

Weapons training involved practice on the Lee Enfield rifle, Bren gun and Sten gun. But there was plenty of leisure activities, including a six-a-side football team. Ray and his team-mates reached the cup final in one tournament.

One of the lads in the Oakham TA was a particularly talented footballer, Norman Rawlings, who still lives locally.

Ray said: "Norman had trials with Leicester City but he turned them down. He said they were only offering £6 10s and he was already on that at the boot factory he worked at. He told them he preferred playing with his mates anyway."

When Ray was called up for his national service more than half-a-century ago he wasn't looking forward to it and moaned, like a lot of his fellow recruits.

But now he looks back on that time with fondness. He added: "I was only 18-years-old and I had only read about these places.

"We went through the Suez Canal, to Aden, Singapore and Hong Kong.

"It was an experience and I am glad I went through it."