Being dropped off at the airport often marks the start of an exciting adventure for many year-olds. For James Wilton, who had volunteered to fight for Ukraine just months after finishing college, it would ultimately lead to his death.
The teenager from Huddersfield was killed in a drone attack in the village of Terny on the eastern front. He was 18, who knows what he could have done? He didn't have a life, that's the worst part of it.
Instead he chose to enrol on a course in animal land care at Kirklees College. Aged 17 and nearing the end of his education, Graham says James began to discuss wanting to go to Ukraine to help with the war effort.
Neither Graham, James' mother, or his older sisters Sarah, 21, or Sophie, 22, had wanted the youngest member of the family to go, but they were unable to convince him to change his mind. Graham says he reluctantly supported James, adding: "If I hadn't have done it I would have woken up one morning and he would have gone.
Could I have changed his mind? Graham dropped James off at Manchester Airport on 28 April. From there he caught a flight to Krakow then boarded a bus to Ternopil, where he joined up with the International Legion and underwent a basic training programme lasting about four weeks. Speaking ahead of the third anniversary of the start of the war later this month, Graham says his son and his comrades, who hailed from all over the world and had varying degrees of military experience, were "totally ill-equipped" and used as "cannon fodder".
