The British Army is the only military in Europe that still recruits 16-year-olds.
That’s how old Hamish* was when he joined last year. As is required of all 16- and 17-year-old sign-ups, who are legally still children but are given the titles of ‘junior soldiers’, he moved into the residential Army Foundation College Harrogate in the north of England to begin his military training.
“In the first couple of weeks, it’s brilliant,” he said of his early days in the army, explaining that most teenage recruits “see it as a brilliant way of earning money”, particularly “if you haven’t really got any GCSEs”.
