A YORK teenager has taken on guard duties at Buckingham Palace.

Former Millthorpe School pupil Josh Downes, 17, was selected to take on his first guard duties at the palace in the run up to Christmas.

Last year he received the prize for the Best Junior Soldier in the Infantry after completing a 42-week course combining vocational education and military training at the Army Foundation College in Harrogate.

Josh, of the Coldstream Guards, said he became even more determined to do well after being initially deferred from Army selection.