A YOUNG soldier has been discovering more about the courage that won his great-great-uncle Britain's highest award for valour.

Corporal William Clamp was awarded the Victoria Cross 87 years ago.

Now the youngest member of his family has seen the medal for the first time.

Junior Soldier Carl Clamp, 16, from Hawick, is studying at the Army Foundation College in Harrogate, North Yorkshire.

He visit the Green Howards Regimental Museum, in Richmond, to discover more about his brave relative, who came from Motherwell, in Scotland.

Cpl Clamp was 25 and serving with the 6th Yorkshires when, in October, 1917, the British advance at Poelcapelle, near Passchendaele, in Belgium, was slowed by German machinegun fire.

Picking the largest concrete pillbox, Cpl Clamp set out with two men to destroy it with Mills bombs, but his companions were wounded and he dragged them to safety.

He then collected two more bombs and two more men and set out again against the pillbox. He hurled his bombs and disappeared, only to re-emerge carrying a German machine gun and with a large number of prisoners.

He continued his brave exploits until he was shot dead by a sniper while trying to capture another enemy machinegun position. His name is carved on the Tynecot Memorial to the Dead, five miles north of Ypres.

"I can't stop thinking about what my great-uncle must have been feeling like," said Carl, who has been studying Cpl Clamp's history as part of his studies.

"My family hasn't forgotten his actions and many of us have joined the Army since then."