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Peter Skelton, who graduated from the university in 2008 with a Masters in Rehabilitation Science, has spent the past decade responding to world emergencies including those in Haiti, Syria and Bangladesh, working for the charity Humanity & Inclusion and the UK’s Emergency Medical Team.

In a recorded video speech at this morning's graduation ceremony in the Brighton Centre he said: “The main things I have learned are probably the most obvious things.

“They are things that once you have experienced at first hand leave an indelible mark. The first and most obvious of these is that war is a terrible thing.”

Peter said he rarely saw battles, heroes or villains, but: “I have seen history teachers tortured, injured children with 13 family members killed, refugees with spinal injuries sleeping on the bare ground, villages burned, whole cities destroyed, not victory, not glory.

Peter Skelton on screen at graduation

“More and more we see our local colleagues targeted deliberately and killed in these situations. You don’t need to travel to a war zone to support them but you can speak out for them or support organisations like mine that work with them.

“The second thing I have learned is more positive and that is the human spirit is an incredible thing. I have worked with tireless colleagues, their homes destroyed by an earthquake who, day after day, go about their work in an overflowing hospital with neither power or water with no care for themselves.

“I have stepped into bombed homes or desert tents and been met with a smile and offered tea or snacks. I have worked with patients with neither home, possession nor family, with catastrophic injuries who are nevertheless resolute.”

He advised graduates: “Never underestimate people. Ordinary people affected by adversity are almost always resilient, dynamic, altruistic and kind.”

His final advice was to remember: “We are where we are in life because of luck, much more so than because of intelligence, talent or even hard work, though I am certain you have all worked incredibly hard to get to where you are today.

“It is through luck though that you are likely born in a time of relative peace, in the UK at least, with free health care, clean drinking water and universal education.

“We must not take these things for granted. It is only through action we can preserve them for the next generation both here and around the world.

“Through luck you will very soon be in the top one per cent of earners in the world. Just by having a degree you will join only six per cent of the population or if you have graduated with a Masters now one per cent of the population of the world.

“You were born into this position of relative power and responsibility through luck alone. But you have chosen your profession because you want to help others.

He congratulated graduates for their hard-earned and well-deserved successes but also urged them to “stand up for those less fortunate, care for those who need it and be a voice for those who are voiceless.”