Jones is a member of the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Jones was working as the town butcher. (The address of his shop was mentioned in the episode "A Brush with the Law" as being 19 High Street, Walmington-on-Sea.) He was so keen to join the Local Defence Volunteers that, despite his age (70), Captain Mainwaring instantly appointed him as the platoon's lance corporal. However, it is suggested that Jones' ability to provide off-the-ration meat may have had rather more to do with this decision than his physical and mental abilities, which were declining somewhat due to his age. His vision, for example, was so poor that when signing up for duty, he initially signed the table instead of the form. In many episodes, Jones fondly recalls his participation in the Battle of Omdurman in the Sudan, facing the "Fuzzy Wuzzies" under the command of General Kitchener. As an aged veteran, he is extremely fond of bayonet warfare ("the cold steel"), and usually meets any queries about this with the assertion that "they don't like it up 'em!", a phrase which writer Jimmy Perry remembered an old campaigner using, during his own service in the Home Guard. It is also noted that Jones once kept wicket behind the great cricketer Ranjitsinhji, who was "an Indian gentleman and upstanding man" until he "whipped his bails off". Age and health It is a bit of a puzzle as to how old Jones is. In the fifth episode of series one ("The Showing Up of Corporal Jones"), he says that he is sixty years old. Yet later in the same episode, he says that he is seventy. But in the last episode of series four ("Fallen Idol"), he says that he is not sixty yet. Yet Walker says that due to all of the military activities Jones keeps claiming that he took part in, he must be over ninety. Jones contracted malaria during his military service in the Egypt and the Sudan in the Season 4 Episode 14 extended Christmas special "Battle of the Giants!" he gets a bout of it and says he had it for nearly forty years. Character traits Jones is known for a number of eccentric traits, such as using long, rambling explanations and anecdotes whenever he wants to make a point. He is also invariably one step behind the rest