Philip is a typical style-conscious 19-year-old. He is going on holidays to Italy this summer, and the first thing going into his bag is his favourite shorts. They look like the kind you might see on any 19-year-old - baggy, khaki, good quality. They could be made by Calvin Klein.

In fact, he got them as a Christmas present from his grandfather, and they go back a long way. Right back, in fact, to the heat and dust of 1940s Kenya, where Philip's grandfather served in the British army.

Born in Carlow in 1918, he was posted to Africa in 1942. He sailed in convoy through the Mediterranean, and then travelled by train to a camp about 90 miles north of Nairobi. There, as an officer in charge of 100 machete-carrying troops, he wore the same shorts his grandson wears now.

Philip remembers his grandfather, now 82, telling him how Italian prisoners of war cooked dinners for the troops. He talked too of further travels to India in 1944, when Mahatma Ghandi was fighting silently for independence. He was destined for Burma, but the War there ended before he was posted.

"I have huge admiration for my grandad. He's a really modest, strong man. A man of morals. Very much an old-style gentleman. Our family has a habit of keeping things. I wear the shirts my dad wore in the 1970s. I don't think it's sentimentality, because I'm not sentimental - not many 19-year-olds are, I suppose. These shorts have seen a lot more of life than I have," says Philip.

Wouldn't they be the basis of a good chat-up line? "What? Like `Hi, I'm Philip, and these are my second World War shorts?' I haven't tried it yet. Do you think it would work?"