Secret History: Britain's Boy Soldiers (C4): WHEN Lord Kitchener declared: "Your country needs you", the young men of Britain responded eagerly with three-quarters of a million volunteering for the army in two months.

What this documentary revealed was that thousands were under the official recruitment age of 19. Some were as young as 14 and 15, hiding their real age in order to join up for what they saw as an heroic adventure.

New research shows that some 250,000 under-age boys fought for Britain and that the government repeatedly turned a blind eye, despite the pleas of many parents for their sons to be brought home.

Several boy soldiers who survived the ordeal related their experiences, including one who told how he "got the biggest pasting I've had in my life" when his father discovered he'd signed up.

Other parents were unaware their sons had joined up. When they realised, there was little they could do about it.

Arthur Markham, Liberal MP for Mansfield, took up their cause, questioning why boys were being accepted in the British army, but ministers ignored his repeated complaints about press gang tactics. This "aggressive recruitment" involved stopping boys in the street, no matter what their age, and pressuring them to join up.

The government of the day continued to turn a blind eye as Markham continued trying to get the boys back on behalf of parents.

Directives to bring underage boys back from the front were ignored, partly because commanding officers were keen to keep their companies up to strength and therefore reluctant to send trained soldiers home.

Faced with the question: "Do you want to go home?", young soldiers were hardly likely to want to appear cowardly and reply: "Yes".

Horace Iles was 14 when he enlisted. The morning his sister Florrie wrote a letter begging him to tell the authorities his real age, he was lying dead in the mud on the front line, aged just 16. The letter was stamped KILLED IN ACTION and sent back. "He was only a boy," said Florrie, interviewed for the programme.

Much as you had to admire the youngsters' willingness to defend their country, their age meant they were often ill-equipped mentally and physically for warfare.

One, who lied about both his age and his nationality in order to join, cracked under the strain. He left the battlefield, took refuge in a farmhouse, was caught and court-martialled. He was executed at the age of 17.

In a way Markham himself, who was actually in favour of conscription but not of underage boys being accepted, was a casualty of war. His health suffered through his tireless campaigning and he died, aged 50, in 1916.

The documentary put right the fact that the boy soldiers' heroic contribution to the war has never been fully recognised.

Published: 15/06/2004