THE funeral of a Second World War veteran who was awarded the Burma Star medal will take place next week.

Clifford White, 95, passed away on February 10 after a prolonged illness.

His funeral service will be held in the central chapel at Landican Cemetery next Thursday, March 8, at 11am.

One of seven children, Mr White was born in Henry Street, Birkenhead in 1922.

He joined the army in 1941 and during World War Two, served in Burma and awarded the Burma Star medal.

He later campaigned, successfully, for the installation of a Burma Star Memorial in Hamilton Square, Birkenhead, honouring the lives of his former fellow servicemen.

Recalling his father’s stories of life before service, his son, the comedy writer Howard White, told the Globe: "He was the youngest of seven children in a family that was constantly moving house.

"Dad told me that most of houses they lived in were two up, two down.

"He often joked that the family had to sleep in shifts."

A former pupil at Woodchurch Road Primary and Park High School, Cliff worked for Liverpool Corporation in the tramways department at Gillmoss when war broke out in September 1939.

Describing working conditions in wartime Liverpool, Howard said: "Dad told me this sometimes meant an hour's walk back to the city if the trams were off due to war damage or air raids.

"He also held a position as a fire watcher, armed with a bucket of sand and a stymp-pump on the roof of the Liver Building. His time at home was limited.

"He got his first taste of genuine horror of war during one air raid in May 1941.

"He was on the roof of the Liver Building. Across from him was another fire watcher on a roof.

"They waved. My dad went inside to grab a shovel. There was a big ex- plosion.

"When he returned to the roof, the building opposite had gone."

Cliff was enlisted in the army in October 1941 and sent for training in Colywn Bay, Newcastle and Ulverston, Cumbria.

He was then sent abroad in May 1943 in a convoy from the Clyde around the Cape of India.

While serving in Calcutta he was hospitalised with dengue fever. It was then on to Burma.

Howard said: "Dad told me, years later, that he was back in hospital by January 1944 with malaria and evacuated to a hospital in Northeast India.

"The theatre sister turned out to be his sister Ruby, which was a bizarre coincidence."

He returned to Burma and as a signalman, was affiliated to various brigades in the 25th Indian Division.

He was part of the advance on Malaya and took part in the notorious Operation Zipper as war ended.

He declined a sergeant's job in 1946, opting to return home and was de- mobbed in October that year.

He was mentioned in dispatches during post-war operations.

The father-of-two and grandfather of three joined the Burma Star Association in 1985, later becoming its treasurer and membership secretary.

As membership declined he took the Burma Star into Wirral schools and was regular speaker at Remembrance Day Services in Park High, Prenton High, Upton Convent and Bebington High.

The Association’s Wirral Branch was disbanded in June 2011 after he was hospitalised and entered a care home. The Burma Star colours were laid up with 234 Transport Squad- ron, Territorial Army in Oxton