A RETIRED Vale journalist is still working to uncover the truth about one of the last century's worst war crimes as he approaches his 90th birthday.

Philip Beck, who now lives in France with his wife, Marie Ccile, has recently republished the results of his ongoing research into a shocking atrocity of the Second World War.

Proving that his reporter's instincts are as sharp as ever, Mr Beck has uncovered a new reason why a company of SS men arrived at the French village of Oradour shortly after D-Day in 1944 and massacred every man, woman and child.

Mr Beck has been investigating the massacre since he heard about it in the 1970s, when he published the first draft of his investigations. "I first read about the massacre in a French magazine and was amazed that I had not heard of it before. I was shocked by the details of the slaughter of so many people and, when I read that the ruins had been preserved, being an investigative journalist, I felt that I had to go there, to try to find out what really happened."

Despite the horror of the crime, the story of Oradour is little known in Britain. Mr Beck's account presents a moving and detailed account of the horror that visited the quiet rural community on June 10, sixty years ago.

"The village was attacked by a company of SS for no apparent reason," said Mr Beck. "They killed 642 people, the entire population, and burned all the buildings. The reasons for this have remained very mysterious but I think I may have discovered a possible explanation, which I detail at the end of the book."

Mr Beck's search for the truth follows a lifetime in newspapers after being born into the Smith family - the founders of the Evesham Journal.

In 1931, at the age of 16, he started with the Journal's sister paper, the Tewkesbury Register as a cub reporter. In 1940, after a brief spell in the Journal's Swan Lane offices, he was drafted into the Army and served in the dental core in the Far East, an experience he has detailed in another, as yet unpublished, book.

Following the war he spent four years in the central office of information before returning to the Vale to look after a plantation for his father, a job he says he did not relish. When he had the opportunity, he returned to the newsroom and worked his way up to the editor's chair of Berrow's Worcestershire Journal, a job he held for 16 years. He was also the West Midlands chairman of the Guild of British Newspaper Editors.

When he reached the age of retirement he did not put down his notepad, instead he returned to the Journal office as a sub-editor for a further five years.

Since this time Mr Beck, a fit and active 89-year-old, has spent a happy 16 years living in St Malo, France, with his French wife.

"We moved over in 1988 to look after Marie Ccile's mother while she was ill and have lived happily ever after," he said.

"I have many more books I want to write, I just hope I have time."

Oradour by Philip Beck is published by Pen and Sword Books and priced £9.99.