A soldier from Wantage has been awarded the prestigious Queen's Gallantry Medal.

Capt Damian Walker, pictured front, is a bomb disposal expert with the Royal Engineers, based in Cambridgeshire.

He was brought up in the town and attended Garston Lane Primary School and King Alfred's College.

He was awarded the medal for defusing a number of bombs.

The most notable were a 2,200lb German Second World War bomb, found next to a housing estate at Woodley, in Reading, in July 1999, and an American bomb, discovered in a factory in Kosovo, in former Yugoslavia, in October of the same year. Capt Walker had the difficult and dangerous job of having to defuse both the bombs by hand.

He said: "It's mainly done by controlled remote explosion these days. Hand defusing hasn't really been done since the Second World War."

Capt Walker had to use the more dangerous technique because of the awkward locations of the weapons.

He said: "The Reading bomb was close to housing, so it couldn't be exploded, and the Kosovo one was six floors up in a factory where there were a lot of chemicals that could have caused problems."

Capt Walker said: "I'm very proud and surprised to be awarded this medal.

"There are a lot of guys in the regiment that do difficult jobs and I was just lucky to get noticed."

His mother, Maria Walker, of Grove Street, said: "We're very proud of him. It's a great achievement."

This month, Capt Walker is off to Bosnia on a six-month tour of duty with his unit.