The oldest and bravest part-time soldiers who have served in British military campaigns celebrated 100 years of the Territorial Army yesterday.

Doreen Lloyd, 90, a TA coder and decoder in the Intelligence Corps after the Second World War, was the oldest participant in the service at St Paul’s Cathedral and, after a parade through the City of London, at a reception at Guildhall.

“The TA has been my family all my life — I lost my boyfriends in the Second World War and never married,” she said.

The Pikemen of the Honourable Artillery Company lined the steps of the cathedral as the soldiers and guests arrived at St Paul’s.

One of the bravest visitors was Private Luke Cole, 22, a forklift engineer from Wolverhampton, who was seriously injured in the leg, hip and stomach while trying to save injured comrades in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He won the Military Cross.

Private Cole still needs another 18 months of treatment to recover from his wounds and is frequently in pain, but was determined not to miss the thanksgiving service. “I have absolutely no regrets about serving in the TA. It’s wicked, and I’m glad the TA is being recognised in this way,” he said.

There are 800 Territorial personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan now, and almost 15,000 have served in the two operations since 2003.

Ms Lloyd’s postwar work with the TA version of the Intelligence Corps was highly classified and, even now, she finds it difficult to spell out exactly what she was doing. But as well as working for a bank in London, she served with the Travel Control Section, which entailed watching out for fifth columnists attempting to slip into British ports. “It was a War Office idea,” she said.

She served in the TA for ten years, most of the time training as a cipher specialist at a stately home owned by the Duke of Buckingham, but she has remained a faithful follower of the Territorials, attending annual reunions.

At St Paul’s, the Rev Mark Chester, chaplain to The Royal Yeomanry, reminded the congregation that although the TA was celebrating its 100th year the notion of the part-time soldier went back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. He cited David, the slayer of Goliath, as one of the earliest part-time soldiers.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, the Chief of the General Staff, was among those who attended the service.

Warrant Officer 1 John Davis, 49, of 36 Signal Regiment, a haulage manager from Tilbury, Essex, served in the TA for 27 years before experiencing his first war when he was deployed to Iraq in 2003. He was based at Basra Palace, which was constantly under attack, and he admitted that it had been a shock to the system. “But it was worse for my partner and daughter, and the rest of my family who read in the papers about all the casualties \ and worried about what might be happening to me,” he said.

Corporal Cat Creed, 43, from Chesham, Buckinghamshire, a London Transport driver, was also called up for Iraq in 2003. She said: “The TA has always been seen as a Dad’s Army. But I don’t think that the Army would be able to manage without the TA, with so many operations around the world.”

THEY ALSO SERVE

36,000 Territorial Army soldiers in the UK and Gibraltar

19.7% female members

336 Territorials killed on duty in the past 60 years, includingon exercise and peacekeeping operations as well as battle casualties - five in Iraq and three in Afghanistan

£404m annual cost of running the TA

Source: MoD

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