Retired solicitor Robert Benjamin, 82, has finally finished his university degree more than 60 years after being forced to abandon his studies because he was conscripted to work in Britain’s mines during World War Two.

The former Bevin Boy, as the mining conscripts were known, graduated with a 2:1 in history from Manchester University this year after starting his first degree in law back in 1943.

After serving as a Bevin Boy and later in the Royal Air Force, Benjamin did his articles with a Liverpool firm and was eventually admitted to the roll on 1 March 1952. Two years later he set up his own firm based in Merseyside. ‘In those days, as returning ex-servicemen, you didn’t have to get a law degree. If you could pass the Law Society exams you could start training. But I always had the feeling that I wanted to get a university degree and I was always passionately interested in history,’ says Benjamin.

While studying alongside undergraduates in their late teens and early 20s posed some problems – ‘the age gap was enormous’ – there were unexpected benefits too.

‘One of the students was doing his dissertation on the Bevin Boys. He was amazed to discover that not only was one was still alive but one was in his class,’ says Benjamin with more than a hint of mischievousness.

Now Benjamin – who still holds a practising certificate – plans to start studying for an MA in Modern European History, also at Manchester. Obiter can only admire the octogenarian scholar and wish him well. Any other Bevin Boys out there?