AN eighty-year-old war veteran has discovered a piece of shrapnel embedded in his head, the legacy of being badly wounded during the Second World War.

Bill Weston was serving with the 2/5 Queen's Regiment when he was wounded during fierce fighting in Italy.

Last week, Mr Weston went into hospital for a scan after he complained of increasingly bad migraines.

"I've had no end of headaches," said Mr Weston, a life-long Worcester resident, who now lives in Foregate Street. "I even collapsed in town once. The doctors at that stage put it down to vertigo.

"After my recent headaches, I went into to hospital and was put on the scanning machine. They said it would take about 10 seconds, but after five seconds they pulled me out.

"The nurse said 'we cannot go on because there's some steel in your head'. Those were her actual words."

He knew then that it must be shrapnel that was causing the problems.

"I had been posted in Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Egypt and then finally in Italy," said Mr Weston who turns 81 next month, recalling his service history. "I was wounded in September, 1944.

Mr Weston, who was a private at the time, was wounded when his battalion was crossing fields as the Allies were taking the Gothic Line.

"Because we were crossing fields the Germans could see us and they threw everything they had at us," he said.

"My mate had his arm blown clean off. I was hit in the head and there was blood pouring down my face, but it was a thigh wound which was more serious."

Mr Weston was carried by a mini Bren Gun carrier to a field hospital, where he was patched up and sent to hospital.

He was treated at three Italian hospitals before he was shipped back home to England.

"First I was taken to Liverpool and then I was transferred back here to Ronkswood."

Mr Weston went on to do various jobs, including 22 years in the sorting office at the GPO, and for almost 60 years the shrapnel embedded in his head went unnoticed.

"I never realised. I've have never had my head X-rayed," he said

Mr Weston, who is due to be seen by a specialist on Wednesday, January 8, said: "I have no idea what will happen next."