sentences:  Bates was born in Swindon, England in 1899 and as a teenager worked at the Great Western Railway factory.In 1917, he enlisted in the British Army and served in World War I, training soldiers to prepare for poison gas attacks.After returning from the war, he began to travel, to France and then, in 1923, to Spain, where he had wanted to visit since boyhood (his great-grandfather, a steamer captain, was buried in Cadiz).