A NONAGENARIAN who founded a long-standing arts society and served in the anti-aircraft artillery during the Second World War has published his memoir, Jack the Lad.

Jack Fieldhouse, 94, from Bridgwater, signed up at 18, and spent time in Tunisia, Algeria, and even a year in Italy as a gunner and infantry soldier in the British Army.

Jack said: “I was commandeered to join a group for about four or five months in central Italy, taking food and ammunitions to the infantry stationed in the Alps on a mule called Jacko.”

He and wife Joan met aged 28 and 24 after the war while earning money picking apples during his holidays while studying as a fine art undergraduate in Guildford.

Among her own war-time duties, Joan served as personal driver to General Freyberg, a British-born Victoria Cross recipient, taking him “to all kinds of far-flung places during the war.”

Just days after meeting in the apple orchard, “we were engaged,” said Jack. The couple have now been married for 65 years, 55 of which have been spent at Broomfield Hall in Enmore.

Soon after arriving in Bridgwater, Fieldhouse helped get the local Chandos Society of Artists off the ground.