Others who applied at the same time were given a discharge date in 1972.

"[His wife] Caitlin had the temper and she would give him a right hiding."Actress and writer Ruth Jones has been awarded this year's Hay Festival medal for drama.

The Gavin and Stacey co-creator was honoured in Hay-on-Wye, Powys, where she was speaking about her new novel.War Horse author Michael Morpurgo won the fiction medal, while British-Turkish novelist Elif Shafak won the medal for prose."We are honoured to celebrate three exceptional storytellers," said Hay Festival chief executive Julie Finch, who said the three winners had "each done much to push the boundaries of contemporary writing and spread the joy of stories here and around the world".

Jones, from Bridgend, writes about finding joy in unlikely connections in her new book, By Your Side.Morpurgo is one of UK's best-known children's authors, writing more than150 books and serving as Children's Laureate.

Shafak's most recent novel, There Are Rivers in the Sky, is the story of three lives – in Victorian London, 2014 Turkey and 2018 London – connected by a single drop of water.

Two disused phone boxes are to be transformed into writing hubs as part of a creative community project."Ensuring the child receives good nutrition in their first four years as well makes all the difference."

In a message to young innovators, the tech billionaire noted that mobile phones had revolutionised banking in Africa, and argued that AI should now be used for the continent's benefit."Africa largely skipped traditional banking and now you have a chance, as you build your next generation healthcare systems, to think about how AI is built into that," he said.

Gates pointed to Rwanda as an example, saying it was already improving services using AI-enabled ultrasound to identify high-risk pregnancies.The Gates Foundation said it had three priorities: ending preventable deaths of mothers and babies, ensuring the next generation grows up without having to suffer from deadly infectious diseases, and lifting millions of people out of poverty.