A Territorial Army soldier shot dead in Afghanistan had been training at Blakelands.

Rifleman Andrew Fentiman, 23, had been training in Milton Keynes for two years and was hoping to become an officer.

But on Sunday, just two weeks after being deployed to Afghanistan, he was shot dead while on foot patrol in Helmand province.

On November 4 the soldier, who was serving with the 7th Battalion The Rifles, had written a blog from the frontline revealing new body armour and helmets had not yet been delivered.

He wrote: 'We have been doing the training package which consists of IED clearance drills, zeroing, defensive shoots, patrolling skills, use of night vision goggles and some mandatory briefs, we need to complete this before we can move outside the wire.

'We are quite fortunate as the day before we were due to be on the ranges, one person was killed and two others injured as someone stepped on an IED which didn't make for a pleasant arrival for us.

'We are still waiting on these new body amour and helmets that were promised to us. You would have seen the story splashed all over the news, they said they would be ready for us but we hope they'll arrive soon.'

He also joked that he was able to buy cigarettes at $5 for 200 –although he hadn't heard of any of the brands available.

In September, the Ministry of Defence said 5,000 sets of helmets and body armour were about to be shipped to Afghanistan.

However, Vice Chief of the Defence Staff General Sir Nicholas Houghton said: "There is no reason to believe it would have made any difference in respect of survivability in this case."

Rifleman Fentiman's death follows the serious injury caused to fellow Blakelands soldier Rifleman Christopher Gwilt in August.

The 19-year-old suffered burns from an exploding grenade and had to be treated at Birmingham's Selly Oak Hospital.

MP for North-East Milton Keynes Mark Lancaster, who is a Major in the TA and served in Afghanistan in 2006, said: "Rifleman Andrew Fentiman was by all accounts an excellent young soldier.

"He was typical of that very special kind of person that joins the TA and volunteers to serve his country, he will be sorely missed."