[2] At the time of his death, aged 111 years and 38 days, Patch was the third-oldest man in the world, behind Walter Breuning and Jiroemon Kimura.

[5][6] In October 1916, during the First World War, he was conscripted into the British Army as a private, reporting for duty at Tolland Barracks, Taunton.

Earlier this year, I went back to Ypres to shake the hand of Charles Kuentz, Germany's only surviving veteran from the war.

This was subsequently lost and on 20 September 2008, at a ceremony at Bath Fire Station, Patch was presented with a replacement medal.

[17] A year above the age to be called up for military service at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, he became a part-time fireman in Bath, dealing with the Baedeker raids.

[22] At the age of 100, Patch moved to Fletcher House Nursing Home in Wells, where he found a companion in Doris Whitaker.

[10] Patch was featured in the 2003 television series World War 1 in Colour and said "if any man tells you he went over the top and he wasn't scared, he's a damn liar".

[29] The meeting was featured in a 2005 BBC TV programme The Last Tommy, which told the stories of several of Britain's last World War I veterans.

[32] In August 2007, Patch's autobiography The Last Fighting Tommy, written with Richard van Emden, was published, making him one of the oldest authors ever.

[38] On 27 September 2008, in a private ceremony attended by a few people, Patch opened a memorial on the bank of the Steenbeek, at the point where he crossed the river in 1917.

This stone is erected to the memory of fallen comrades, and to honour the courage, sacrifice and passing of the Great War generation.

"[39]Also in September 2008, Patch visited the nearby Langemark German war cemetery and laid a memorial wreath on the grave of an Imperial German Army soldier who was killed in action on 16 August 1917; the day that Private Patch's Division had attacked and taken the village of Langemarck during the Battle of Passchendaele.

[41] On 11 November 2008, marking the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I, together with fellow veterans Henry Allingham and Bill Stone, Patch laid a commemorative wreath for the Act of Remembrance at The Cenotaph in London, escorted by Victoria Cross recipient Johnson Beharry.

[42] On 9 November 2008, the Master of the Queen's Music, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, attended the world premiere of his choral work paying tribute to Patch.

The penultimate Western Front veteran, the 108-year-old Fernand Goux of France, who died on 9 November 2008, fought for 8 days.

It's an image that has haunted me all my life, seared into my mind.On 16 December 2005, Patch was awarded an honorary degree of Master of Arts, honoris causa, by the University of Bristol, whose buildings he helped construct in the 1920s.

He was chosen for this honour as he was a member of the workforce that originally helped build the tower, which was opened on 9 June 1925 by King George V, an event which Patch also attended.

[49] Guinness World Records recognised him as the oldest person to have ever received an honorary degree, at the age of 107 years and 182 days.

[55] The theme of the service was "Peace and Reconciliation" and in addition to pallbearers from The Rifles (the successor regiment to the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry), Patch's coffin was accompanied by an honour guard of two private soldiers each from the armies of Belgium, France, and, most symbolically, from the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany.

[52] According to his friend and biographer Richard van Emden, Patch, "an ordinary man who had worked so hard towards reconciliation between former foes... had genuinely died surrounded by peace.

Having bought the horse in October 2007, during that year's Poppy Appeal, the Newmarket trainer decided to name him after a First World War veteran.

The result, Last Post, was read by Duffy on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 on 30 July 2009, the day of Allingham's funeral.

Singer Thom Yorke explained that the song was inspired by a 2005 interview with Patch on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4.

[62][63] In mid-2009, Harry recorded some spoken word parts for UK heavy metal band Imperial Vengeance, to be included on the title track to the album At the Going Down of the Sun.

[64] The former UK Poet Laureate Andrew Motion composed a poem, The Death of Harry Patch, which he read for the first time on The World at One Radio 4 programme on Armistice Day 2010.

[65] On 6 November 2015, Great Western Railway named one of their Class 43 High Speed locomotives after Harry to commemorate the forthcoming armistice day.

The locomotive was wrapped in remembrance vinyls that included images of poppies, soldiers, and text from the 'For the Fallen' poem by Laurence Binyon.

Harry Patch's portrait, painted from life by the artist Bill Leyshon, was commissioned by the Western Daily Press in 2007 and is now in the collections of Somerset Museums Service, Taunton.

[67][68] In 2009 Harry Patch's portrait was painted by Dan Llywelyn Hall and was exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery and is now in the collections of Bath's Victoria Art Gallery[69] After his death, several articles examined how Patch's life and image served as a reference point for thinking about the meaning of the Great War, commemoration and indeed the figure of the veteran.