VETERANS from the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry have paid their respects to fallen comrades at a memorial dedicated to those who fought during the Cyprus Campaign.

Roy Bailey was just 20-years-old when he was sent out to fight on the island in 1956 as part of his national service.

Now 80, he was joined by a dozen other comrades to lay a wreath at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire for the Dedication of the Cyprus Campaign Memorial on Sunday.

Mr Bailey said: "It was extremely dangerous, we were fighting against terrorists.

"We were stationed a lot of the time near police stations so that the local force knew that they were being supported by us.

"Today was an extremely important for us to be able to pay our respects for the people who fought and protected the Turkish Cypriots."

In August 1956 the regiment took part in operations against EOKA terrorists in Cyprus.

EOKA was a Greek Cypriot nationalist guerilla organisation that fought a campaign for the end of British rule in Cyprus, for the island's self-determination and for eventual union with Greece.

The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry were deployed for most of the time in the Limasol area where they replaced the Norfolk Regiment, returning to the UK in 1958.

Gerald French and Michael O'Carroll, both from Banbury, died during the conflict alongside Scotsman David Neill in the regiment.

Mr Bailey, who lives in Hungerford, West Berkshire, said: "Both Mr O'Carroll and Mr French were between 19 to 21-years-old.

"We wanted to pay our respects to those men as well as the 390 people who died in the four-year-conflict.

"It is so important that we continue to have memorials and services like today because it is important for young people to know what their parents and grandparents have been through so that the same mistakes are not made - we have got to remember the sacrifice."

Mr Bailey, who was conscripted into the regiment as part of National Service signed on for three years because he said "I enjoyed it more than I thought I would."

He said: "I remember when Tony Brooks from our regiment was escorting some schoolchildren.

"He got awarded the commander in chief commendation after he spotted a bomb on the porch of someone's house.

"I think one of the biggest challenges we faced out there was knowing that we were in danger."