Eat Out from £5

The Ministry of Defence yesterday named the soldier who died on Wednesday - the seventh in a week - as Trooper Christopher Whiteside, 20, of The Light Dragoons.

The MoD revealed that Trooper Whiteside had hoped to compete in the 2012 Olympics. He died in a blast caused by an improvised explosive device near Gereshk in Helmand.

Trooper Whiteside was a talented swordsman who had hoped to begin training for a possible place in the Great Britain fencing team for the 2012 Olympics in London on his return from Afghanistan.

His friends in the Light Dragoons fondly remembered him demonstrating his fencing skills with a broomstick at a squadron barbecue.

Trooper Whiteside was also taking part in Operation Panther’s Claw in the central Helmand River valley and his commanding officer said that he had endured four days of some of the most intense fighting ever experienced in Afghanistan before his death.

Known as “Norm” to his friends after former Manchester United footballer Norman Whiteside, he was born in Blackpool and joined the Army in 2005 but was discharged a year later following a serious knee injury.

Still determined to serve his country, he signed up as a soldier again in March last year and started his first tour in Afghanistan this year.

He leaves behind his mother, Diane, and her partner, Malcolm, as well as his younger brother, Dan.

Lieutenant-Colonel Gus Fair, his commanding officer, said: “Trooper Whiteside had only been in the regiment for a short time, but had established a reputation as an excellent soldier. Fit, robust and determined, he had all the qualities that mark out a soldier of considerable promise, and he was at the top of his peers.

The grim news came as the bodies of another five British soldiers killed in Afghanistan over the past week - four of them in Operation Panchai Palang - were being returned to the UK.

Their bodies, including that of Trooper Whiteside, were to be flown into RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire this morning. After a repatriation ceremony, hearses carrying their coffins will pass along the high street of nearby Wootton Bassett, which is expected to be lined with hundreds of mourners.

Crowds have appeared spontaneously along the route to pay their respects since the bodies of British service personnel started being brought home through RAF Lyneham in 2007. The procession will then continue to Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Milk: do we need a dairy godmother?
• DIY: the women doing it for themselves
• First double portrait of Princes unveiled