Joan Pons, 94 Joan is Laura Benesy’s husband. He is one of the last of 200 living soldiers of ‘La Quinta del Biberon’ (Draft of the Baby’s bottle), the last draft to fight against the national front by the end of 1938. A total of 30,000 men born in 1920 and 1921 were called up to fight on the Aragon front. He remembers a Republican officer asking them: “Do you know how to throw stones? These are going to be your only weapons.” He blew up a bridge over the Llobregat river during the republican withdrawal.

Photograph: David Ramos/Getty Images