‘Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea,’ wrote James Boswell of Samuel Johnson in his biography of his friend in 1778. Evidently Jonathan Carley did. The retired teacher was found guilty on Monday of impersonating a rear admiral without permission. The 65-year-old was fined £500 by Llandudno magistrates’ court, and ordered to pay £85 prosecution costs and a £200 surcharge.

Carley was arrested last November, days after he had appeared at the town’s Remembrance service in naval uniform with a dozen medals pinned to his chest. He told police that he had carried out the deception to have a sense of ‘belonging and affirmation’. Passing sentence, District Judge Gwyn Jones told Carley his actions were ‘totally disrespectful’, adding that ‘it’s a sad reflection upon you that you chose to do such a thing on a very difficult day for so many’.

Half a century ago Remembrance Sunday was indeed a difficult day for the nation. Millions had lived through two world wars, as combatants or civilians, and suffered the grief of losing a father, a husband, a son. That is no longer the case. Of the five million Britons mobilised in the second world war, fewer than 8,000 are still alive, and since 1990 the British Army has shrunk from 155,000 troops to 75,000.

The de-militarisation of Britain allowed Carley to get away with his fakery for 14 years. He exploited the nation’s military ignorance with........

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