A DUNKIRK veteran is preparing to make what is likely to be his last emotional visit to Northern France.

Richard Hall, a former Green Howard sergeant major, could not travel to France on Friday to watch the recreation of the Little Ships crossing from Dover in 1940.

Mr Hall, 82, of Warwick Road, Redcar, a former chairman of Teesside magistrates, watched television coverage of the crossing of the Channel by an armada containing many of the original boats that took part. The event marked the 60th anniversary of the British Expeditionary Force being evacuated off the Dunkirk beaches.

Mr Hall, who suffered from shrapnel wounds in both legs after being hit by enemy fire in Northern France, said: "It's sad I couldn't see the last crossing. But I'm going with friends, probably for the last time, to see the cemeteries and battlefields, because I'm too old now.

"I was one of the luckier ones at Dunkirk. I was whisked off to hospital in England by ambulance from the battlefield, via a Channel ferry that was pressed into the Dunkirk evacuation.

"I'm eternally grateful to the ordinary men who jumped into their boats and risked their lives to rescue us from being massacred. The same with my brother Ron, who was on those terrible beaches."

Mr Hall's late brother Ron, an ex-Green Howards intelligence sergeant, was Dunkirk Veteran's Association national vice-chairman.