On 10^th April 2013, military charity SSAFA Forces Help shortened its name to SSAFA as part of a re-brand aimed at improving awareness of the charity amongst members of the Forces community.

SSAFA’s long history of supporting the Forces and their families has made it Britain’s most trusted charity, but research found that many people thought that the charity needed to modernise its identity to better reach its key audiences. 

In addition to current members of the Forces, the charity is increasingly helping younger veterans, many of whom are in their 20s and 30s. 

Families have always been at the heart of what SSAFA does and they have been put at the centre of the new brand. 

A new descriptive strapline reiterates the charity’s commitment to families as well as those who serve.  The change of name is supported by a modern new logo with a three colour underline to represent the charity’s lifelong support to the Navy, Army and RAF.  

Updating the charity’s image follows a long period of consultation with volunteers and staff as well as members of the military community.

SSAFA’s Director of Communications and Marketing, Athol Hendry, said:

“This work has been driven by the need to make sure that members of our Forces, past and present, know that SSAFA is here for them and their families, for life.  Our new brand doesn’t change the great work that SSAFA does, but I hope it will help us to tell our story more clearly than before.” 

Chief Executive, Air Vice-Marshal David Murray CVO, OBE said:

“SSAFA has provided more than 125 years of continued support to our Forces and their families.  But the work we do now is more important than it ever has been.  It’s really important that members of our Forces and their families know that SSAFA is here for them for life.”

 

Please help spread the word about SSAFA so that more people know who to turn to when they need help.  To find out how they help, click on the logo below.

Obviously there are many situations that could result in you dealing with The Housing Allocations Service Centre (HASC) such as a posting to a different area, or requiring a larger house for your growing family – in our case there is no big move, we’re just tying the knot. One thing that we discovered early on is that even if you know months in advance that you & your military partner will need a quarter by a particular date, the process will still not take place until 2-3 months before you move in. In our case it was a relatively quick process, one that left me slightly traumatised none the less!

My eager fiancé first approached welfare quite a few months ago, it felt to us like married life was just around the corner but in housing application terms it was still worlds away & he was told to come back three months before the wedding to submit an e1132 form. Fast forward a few months & dutiful other half once again approached his welfare team who explained the process; this was an interesting conversation where it was assumed that I was pregnant (I’m not) & didn’t work (I do) but ultimately we received the information that we needed, which was that e1132 Self Preference forms are completed & submitted via DII or intranet enabled terminals. My other half typically works in a garage from day to day so in real terms this meant that he needed to spend some time on the computer in the office, a computer that is often in high demand, so this took a few days to do. The form is very generic, its purpose to find out exactly what you require. We have no children, but we do have two cats so we put down the required details, the date of our impending nuptials and our top three desired locations. You can also opt to have the property unfurnished, partly furnished or fully furnished – the form includes a tick list of items that you can select from.
At this stage we did a bit of research into what size property we were entitled to, I’ve included a quick reference table explaining this below but it does vary depending on circumstances & is slightly different for officers;

We are in the fortunate position of already living in private rental accommodation in the area so choosing our wish list was a simple case of doing a recce of the local pad estates. We weren’t fussy. I didn’t particularly want to live behind the wire because of the hassle of getting on, and off camp but ultimately we would have been chuffed with anything, as long as it was as near as possible to camp & didn’t increase my already fairly horrendous commute to work.
For those of you who have no knowledge of the area that you’re moving to I would suggest taking a look at the ‘Married Quarters for the British Armed Forces’ page on facebook; on the page are lots of helpful ladies & photos of the inside & outside of a range of different SFA in areas all over the UK & abroad.

Once the application had been submitted we immediately received an email confirming receipt (email 1). Unfortunately we then received another email a few minutes later which said that the application had been rejected (email 2) but rather unhelpfully didn’t explain why.

This led to a couple of stressful days in our household, hubby to be logged on to the system in work as suggested & could see nothing wrong with the form, the welfare officer had a look & also couldn’t see a problem so we submitted it again, and again it was rejected. After three failed attempts we finally found the telephone number for the HASC that were dealing with our application – this had been on our fridge the whole time, on the welfare magnet he’d had since arrival at the posting over back in 2011 (typical man). The HASC can be contacted in the UK through the free-phone telephone number: 0800 169 6322 and from overseas on 01904 418000 – please note that they are only open until 1pm.

The phone number is manned by Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) staff who are lovely, and very helpful. It transpired that a common mistake made on the e-form is for an incorrect Pstat to be submitted. This meant absolutely nothing to either of us, but apparently refers to personal status & consists of 5 separate categories, number 1 being a married member of the armed forces. Once this was rectified the ball was rolling.

The HASC aim to offer you a property within 15 days, on day 13 we received the email below & my other half logged on to the system the following day.

When an offer is made you receive a 2 page document which states the address of the property, the type, grade & whether or not anyone else is interested in it. You also get a tiny photo of the exterior of the property. The first thing I did was used the postcode & had a look on Google Street View, unfortunately if the property is behind the wire this wouldn’t be possible. We were offered a property above our entitlement, I imagine because these are more readily available at the moment in our area, which was deemed a grade 3. The grade refers to the condition of the property, its scale, and the presence of local amenities.
Based on the information that you receive at this stage you can use the table below to work out approximately how much you will be paying in rental charges each month;

Before we accepted the house we went & peered through the windows (it was vacant!) but I appreciate that not everyone can do that, however if you do want a couple of photos the housing group on facebook is full of people quite willing to take a few snaps for you, alternatively if you’re about to get married & your fiancé is already stationed there send him on a recce. Again the acceptance can only be done online, and then a move in date can be booked. For us this could be no longer than 2 weeks before the wedding & even then I am not officially allowed to reside at the property until after the big day itself. On the move in day you view the inside of the house with the housing officer, this is your chance to point out any damage that is present before you take over occupation, important so that you avoid being blamed for anything that isn’t your fault when the time comes for you to vacate the property.
On the whole it’s all quite simple, but with so many things to take into account it can feel very stressful, especially if you are a little bit of a control freak like me who wants stuff done ASAP! I would also suggest not listening to horror stories or rumours you hear about the availability, or lack of, in the area as there is every possibility that you will have no problems at all. I found the following links invaluable to my sanity; they greatly helped us to negotiate the entire process;

https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/MarriedQuarters/

http://www.aff.org.uk/army_family_life/housing/applying_sfa_ssfa.htm#ssfa

I’ve been married 6 months now and husband has been away for 4 of them so when he said he’d booked me on an ‘indulgence flight’ I was beyond excited, it sounded too good to be true, a flight to the Falkland Islands for far less than the cost of a week in the Costa del Sol. Nobody mentioned that this process is actually an exercise in emotional strength and detective research.

Many years ago I studied Communication Studies and Sociology at university and if I’m being honest, neither are that hard and yet the team behind the indulgence flight process seem to have missed out on any such skills, how to share information or to understand people. The whole experience left me with a little voice in my head saying ‘if only someone had told me this beforehand.’ So once returned I decided to right this wrong (or write this wrong) and with a little help from Charlie I’m hoping to help a few others.

So, herewith, my list of things to know when attempting to Indulge:

The booking process for your other half will not be easy, they will have to seek out the right people and meet all requests promptly and comprehensively. It doesn’t matter if he is on a ship thousands of miles away from the booking office, they still want the document signed and hand delivered.

You may or may not receive confirmation of your request. Departure -2 days and I still hadn’t heard anything. I called Brize Norton who firstly told me I had no booking and then found me hiding on a waiting list. Other passengers had wrong names or contact details.

Booking can be confirmed by some unidentified Corporal via a crackly voicemail with no return phone number.

You are not definitely booked on the flight until all military personnel have checked in on along with their luggage.

Don’t try asking about how many spaces on the flight, its done on weight. (one passenger I spoke to was allowed 60kgs of luggage so I suggest you don’t even try and estimate this either)

There is limited car parking at Brize Norton, this must be booked well in advance and to do that you need you reference number. The one you probably won’t get until a day or so before.
If you ask the right person at Brize Norton they can recommend a taxi firm that does off site parking. I’m going to throw caution to the wind and tell you now. Its called Charlie’s Taxis in Carterton, it’s a little basic but it does the job.

The price of the flight varies on location and can be significantly different outbound and inbound. The first I was told of the price was as I handed over my passport.

Your boarding pass will only be given to you once all military personnel are through to the departure gate. Then its all systems go!

The flight may be run by an independent company, old basic planes but no worse than any budget airline.

The inflight entertainment is administered by issuing you with an ipad which was a pleasant surprise.

The food on board is pretty bad, I suggest taking a few extra supplies. To give an example, I was half way through a beige warm mushy roll before I realised that it was a breakfast burrito and that I was just at the hash brown end.

There is no alcohol allowed on the flight.

The usual rules for travelling with liquids don’t apply.

My flight wasn’t full, its always worth having a look at the back of the plane to see if there’s more space back there rather than being cramped into a block of 4.

The following only applies to Brize Norton to Falkland Islands via Ascension but I’m on a roll now so why stop.

You will have a stop off of about 90 minutes at the Ascension Islands. This isn’t so much a transit lounge as more of a cage or pen, but it’s a warm island and they serve ice-cream so there are worse cages to hang out in.

You will need the address of where you’re staying whilst visiting FI. ‘with my husband’ or ‘at Mount Pleasant’ doesn’t really cut the mustard.

On departure there is apparently a £22 tax, not that anyone asked me for it.

This is probably the most important one… to pay for the return fare the office will only take cash or cheque, no such mod cons as debit cards here. No, there’s no ATM in the airport, the nearest is the post office on base or the NAAFI 5 minutes drive away might be able to do a small amount of cash back.

So there you have it fellow MOD dependents, as you can probably tell I was somewhat traumatised by the process, and yes, I admit that’s probably because I usually like to be fully in control of a situation and on this occasion I didn’t stand a chance. But make the most of the offer of indulgence, I hear Cyprus is great but very popular. And if I can ask one more thing of you it will be to share these nuggets of information with anyone you know who is going to take on the challenge.

Do you know someone who is blind?

Have they done military service?

It does not matter how long ago that service was, or how short it was.  The cause of their blindness does not matter.  The fact that they once served means they are now eligible for help from Blind Veterans UK.

Blind Veterans UK is the new name for the charity formerly known as St Dunstans and they have recently launched the ‘No One Alone’ campaign which aims to spread the message that the charity has now widened it’s criteria for those who can seek help and assistance to anyone who has served and has since become blind.

It’s a simple message, but it can’t reach the people who need to hear it unless we all do our bit to spread the word.

Blind Veterans UK offer practical help, giving each blind veteran the skills and confidence to pick up their life and become independent again. They are there when families can’t cope and they stay with them when times are good. Blind Veterans UK is a community for life.

If you know or care for someone who served their country and has lost their sight, please get in touch with the charity.

You might not know that a blind person has served their country. There are many older people who have done National Service but who do not talk about it regularly.  Why not ask them and find out?

Are you a health professional?  Please visit this link to read how you too can help.

Thank you

Freephone 0800 389 7979

http://www.noonealone.org.uk/

http://www.blindveterans.org.uk/

Blind Veterans UK

12-14 Harcourt Street

London

W1H 4HD

Alison Baskerville is a photojournalist and documentary photographer.  She studied at Westminster University and has a MA in photojournalism.  Her career started in the RAF where she served for 12 years seeing active service in Bosnia and Iraq. It was whilst in Iraq that she became inspired to capture her surroundings on an old Nikon film camera and gave her the motivation and desire to change career paths and become a photojournalist.

In May 2012 The Royal British Legion sponsored her on an embedded position with our Armed Forces in Afghanistan to develop a body of work exploring the changing roles of women within the Forces. Alison was granted unparalleled access to the British Army’s Female Engagement Officers (FEOs) and the women at the Afghan National Army’s training centre in Kabul.

Captain Anna Crossley is a Female Engagement Officer in the Upper Gereshk Valley of Helmand. She is heading out to join soldiers from 3 Rifles as they prepare for a patrol to help Anna gain access into a local compound.

FEOs are drawn from female volunteers from across the army who receive specialist cultural and language training to enable them to carry out their role.  Anna’s language training has helped her to gain access to compounds and the residents are intrigued by her. On many occasions she often pretends to have what she refers to as a ‘Helmand husband’ to help her gain rapport with the women who do not understand the concept of remaining unmarried.

There is little in the way of privacy within the check points and patrol bases of Helmand. The women use their mosquito tents to provide some personal space, often decorating them with gifts from loved ones.

Preserving femininity in the desert.  Captain Alice Homer is an officer with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. She has just spent six months running a small section of soldiers in Camp Bastion.

Known informally as a ‘death letter’, most women will write a message to their family which will be kept somewhere safe and only delivered if the worst should happen.

Keeping hair in a french plait helps secure it under her beret throughout long, sweaty days.

Patrol bases within Helmand have limited showering facilities which will often consist of a hosepipe in a tent and only one shower for both men and women. A small hand made sign provides the only guard to privacy

Favourite toiletries are an often requested item in care parcels sent from friends and family

A bucket is the only way to keep clothes clean at FOB Oulette in the Upper Gereshk Valley in Helmand

Non-issue underwear is a way for the women to keep a sense of their own identity and a chance to add some colour to their surroundings

A contrast of cultures.  Young Afghan women arrive at the Afghan National Police Head Quarters in Lashkar Gah where they hope to receive training and learn basic literacy skills. One day they hope to graduate and gain some element of independence.

“It all starts with education. If we can teach these young girls that they have a right to be free then perhaps we can change things for the next generation of women for Afghanistan.” Says Gullali, Head of the Department of Womens’ Affairs in Gereshk, Helmand Province

Jessica French will return home to her boyfriend and family. She is also looking forward to getting back into her favourite sport, sky diving.

“When I meet soldiers like Jess, I hope that women from Afghanistan will see her and also want to put on a uniform, get a job and learn to be independent” says Gulalli.

At the end of her tent Jess and the other girls have created their own ‘lounge’. It’s a space where the girls can escape to the very different world of Downton Abbey.

Jess French takes time in between patrols to clean her personal weapon, a 9mm Sig Sauer pistol.

Jess often works with women in other roles. Harriet (left) is a qualified army vet. They prepare to head out on a joint patrol to engage with local Afghan families to train them in basic veterinary care.

At the Kabul Military Training Centre Afghan female recruits take part in a 20 week course with the hope of becoming an officer in the Afghan National Army. Captain Susanna Wallis is a Royal Signals Officer who has volunteered to mentor these women.

The women take a break after practicing their marching skills. Although the training takes place in a separate facility to the men Susanna has pushed for the women to graduate alongside the male soldiers.

Anna arrives home at RAF Brize Norton at the end of her seven month tour and is met by her father Alan and mother Carol.

The photographs are being displayed in support of The Royal British Legion throughout the Poppy Appeal.

Where: Gallery @Oxo, Oxo Tower Wharf, South Bank, London, SE1 9PH

When: Exhibition open to public 11am to 6pm 25 October to 11 November 2012

Alison Baskerville is on Twitter: @AliBaskerville

12 years ago and very much to the horror of my parents I toddled into the Army careers office, got the forms, filled them out, did my Barb test (which is an odd touch screen test that is literally 2+2) and passed.  Various interviews later I reached the selection stage at Pirbright which was a bit of a blur but I must have passed because a couple of months later I was dumped at ATR Winchester to commence my Basic Training.

I am pretty sure my parents assumed I’d fail and that they would be picking me back up later that week, but I was very determined.  I have always been headstrong and anything I decide I am going to do I give 100%, which is what I gave my efforts to join the Army.

Basic training was an eye opener and incredibly challenging and testing for a girl who had never even run a mile before.  It was the steepest learning curve of my life but the best thing I ever did.  Every day was different; one day I would be being dragged by my Corporal by my t-shirt around the mile-and-a-half to get in within the time, the next I was in France on a battlefield tour, the next I would be shoving grass in my helmet and sharing a shell scrape with a boy who kept jabbing me with his rifle and saying ‘feel my gun’.

It was 14 weeks of blood, sweat and tears but I made it and my passing out parade was a very proud day with my family and friends looking on, on top of which I was  awarded ‘Most Improved Recruit’ which I have always been reliably informed means I was shit when I started but much less shit when I left.

Most improved recruit trophy

I learnt my trade for a further 3 months then off I went into the field Army and my first posting, Germany, where my life as a soldier was about to get fun.

Arriving with nothing but a bag in tow I was shown to my room.  I was sharing with two other girls who were clearly unhappy at my arrival and my bed was squished so far into the corner that I couldn’t even open my allocated locker, so bag under the bed it was.  I didn’t leave the room for the first 2 weeks; one roomie had just had a boob job on the army (too big for soldiering apparently) and the other roomie would have a shot of aftershock everyday at 4.30pm when we were knocked off.

I was then posted into a very male orientated regiment and the ratio of girls to boys was probably 1:50.  Not long after I arrived a knock at the door revealed two lads standing there clearly just assessing the fresh meat.  They weren’t overly impressed with what they saw so off they went – although months later one did take a shine to me and I still have the love letters to prove it somewhere.

There was always an element of proving yourself as a girl in the Army, earning your slot and showing people you did deserve to be there and you could do your job, my motto quickly became ‘if you can’t beat them join them’ and I became an honorary ‘lad.’ I had the time of my life and a group took me under their wing.  I was the butt of a lot of jokes but I could hold my own.  We drank a lot, partied ‘til 7am – the block parties were out of control and we often broke into the outdoor swimming pool on the way home from the local club for a 5am dip which we all thought hilarious, until one day a lad shouted ‘log alert’ and we witnessed his number two bobbing past.  I never took a late night dip again!

As you would imagine, the wives and girlfriends of the men I served with were very unwelcoming and stand-offish.  Rather than seeing me as someone to befriend on ‘the inside’ they were suspicious and jealous of the access I had to their partners when they were not around, and of the bonds we formed that only shared service can create.

For the next part of my service I was moved to a different role within the regiment and had to start again from the beginning with a new set of lads, this accommodation I much preferred as it was mixed (I had previously been in an all-girls flat.)  Every morning I would shuffle into the showers, my barnet all over the place in just my dressing gown to discover the lads all shaving with their six packs out greeting me with a cheerful ‘morning!’  I lost count of the times they would pinch my towel and dressing gown from the shower leaving me having to escape to my room using only my hands for modesty.

I still see so many of them now and ‘we’ve seen it all before’ often crops up.

I had a ball for the next few years going on some great exercises, battlefield tours and operational tours.  One battlefield tour in particular stands out.  It was to Arnhem and I was the only girl, so was dragged through the red light district for the entire duration of the trip! Baumholder too was a memorable exercise, not only because it was like ‘little America’ in Germany but also because during the exercise 9/11 happened.  I will never forget being sat crammed on the back of a Bedford truck when we heard the news.

My first tour was Kosovo and I don’t ever remember thinking too hard about it, I just went and did what I had to do.  I was a slight Private Benjamin in that many a patrol I would turn to get my rifle and realise I hadn’t signed it out – but I did lots of house searches, seized lots of weapons and grew as a person.  I did also have fun, perhaps a little too much fun sometimes.  Alcohol was in short supply and our interpreter was open to offers, so we would on many an occasion pay him to bring us in alcohol and formed a make shift party, these went on for months including my 19^th birthday which I celebrated out there.  This resulted in my breaking a rib falling off  a chair drunk.  The lads also presented me with a gift from all of them in front of everyone, which was a crusty sock that had seen some ‘action.’  Of course though, it was an operational theatre so something was always going to give.

December saw our regimental day and I won an award.  I was the first person ever to win the award who wasn’t the cap badge of the regiment and it was for being the ‘Biggest impact to the regiment.’  I was thrilled, and off we went whooping whilst filling the trophy cup with vodka…. which all went horribly wrong when we all got caught.  We were all charged and put on Commanding Officer’s orders on Boxing Day, drill in the -16 cold and snow is not fun and neither was the hefty fine.  I have a lifetime of memories stored from that tour, I flew in so many helicopters, fired so many cool weapons, saw so many things that have stayed with me forever and drove in Pristina which if you manage you can survive anywhere, they are complete lunatics.

We returned from a six month tour to our medals parade in the chucking down rain (rain dripping off the end of your nose for over an hour is REALLY annoying)  I was called into the CO’s office immediately post parade only to be told “We are very disappointed to find out that you were selling stamps to soldiers at a profit in Kosovo.” Oops.  I had been found out.  I was then confronted with bellows of laughter and was informed that as I’d shown initiative, I was to be promoted.

A post tour holiday to Magaluf was a fun time and is probably worth another post all of its own.  18 of us went, 18 of us returned – just about – with stories we still laugh about today.  A certain picture from this holiday (of my boobs through a patio door) was placed on lots of block room walls which made for a rather embarrassed me and an even more embarrassed Sergeant Major on room inspection upon our return.

I could tell stories of my time forever, so this is only a small insight into my experience of the Army. Women in the military are tough, hardened individuals who are survivors but they are also women who have a vault of memories and stories and a long list of surrogate brothers who they could call upon for anything.

I worked so hard, laughed so hard, played so hard, made friends for life and they truly were the best years.

The worst part of serving for me was simply that I lost contact with the friends I had before I joined for the years I served.  Army life is all consuming and requires total commitment, something that naturally results in your inability to maintain friendships from afar.  When I was posted to Germany I stayed there for seven years.  I worked, ate, slept, lived, socialised and holidayed with my Army friends.  I would only go back to the UK once a year or so.  If was to be drawn on the worst part of my actual service it would probably be the eight milers on a Saturday morning.

Once you have been in the Army no job quite matches up.  The people you meet, the friends you make and the experiences you have never really compare.  As a soldier every day is different and you don’t know what tomorrow will hold until Part One Orders go up at 1630hrs the day before.

I met my fellow soldier husband and left the British Army when our daughter was 15 months old, she is now 9 years old and proud as punch both mummy and daddy served and continue to serve their country.

I know exactly how my husband feels when he leaves me to be with his other family. I know because he has written it down. This is how he describes 16th March 2008.

“We kissed and I walked out of the door and down the path, my kit slung over my back. Once, twice, I glanced over my shoulder at Margaret and the life I was leaving behind. There was sadness, but also excitement.”

“My latest adventure awaited. In those few steps between wife and car, I went again from being hers to being theirs.”

Theirs, he says. The Army’s.

I remember that day as I remember every day we have said goodbye over the course of a 25-year military marriage. This particular departure marked the start of what Doug said would, without doubt, be his final operational tour of duty, the twelfth in all (on top of which there had been countless exercises which have taken him away for weeks on end).

As Doug stepped out of sight I remained rooted to the spot, something inside me saying that maybe, just maybe he will come back around the corner for one more look, a lingering smile. I waited for another wave from the man I live with – on and off – and love. Of course he did not turn back. Doug had already switched mode, the gentle compassionate man was now Doug the professional soldier, someone bound by responsibility to carry out whatever task he was given regardless of whether it could cost him his life.

Not for the first time I stood there alone, not quite sure if I was immensely proud of Doug for having such a strong sense of duty or immensely resentful of him putting the military before me. I have never been someone who neatly fitted the mould of the Army wife. Yes I was the partner of a soldier, but that did not make me a natural or subservient member of the ‘military family’.

When Doug served as the Regimental Sergeant Major of 1 R IRISH it was expected that I would, along with the Commanding Officer’s wife, run the wives’ club. But I declined to slot into this role. My life had never previously centred on that enforced sociability and I had no intention of starting just because I now happened to be married to the RSM. It would have been disingenuous of me to do so. Doug held the rank, not me, something many partners forget.

This isn’t to say I was not intimately involved in what happened in the unit or wasn’t close to other wives and girlfriends. Rather, I offered my support as a friend, not as a regimental ‘official’ who got too closely involved in others’ personal lives.

While I have been walked out on countless times as Doug departed for this deployment to places like Iraq and Afghanistan, or training trips to Kenya, Cyprus, Canada I always knew in my heart he would come back to me.  But I also witnessed far too often when the husband never returned and the life shattering news reverberated around the married quarters creating fear, apprehension, isolation and loneliness.

For living on what in known to many within the military and outside the military as ‘The Patch’ is like living in a community within a community. And although the place names may change, for an infantry battalion the family personalities remain constant.

As a unit was posted so went the families to a new community somewhere around the globe.  It is like staring anew, new house, new job, new school and new places to explore. It sounds glamorous, conjuring up images of exotic places to see and interesting people to meet. Glamorous, that is until you actually arrive at your destination.

The repeated shattering reality was one of dispiriting disappointment invariable caused by miserable accommodation. Over a quarter of a century we have lived in 15 sets of army quarters, ranging from flats to terraced houses, small bungalows to detached properties. Ostensibly they were all different, yet each possessed a common feature: a drab, shabbiness that induced melancholy at best and depression at worst.

If you had tried to put asylum seekers in such conditions there would be uproar amongst the chattering classes. The camp followers of the 19^th Century, used as they were to squalid conditions, would not have felt completely out of place. Yet if you as a 20^th and 21^st Century military wife wanted to be with the man you loved then there was little alternative other than to try and grin and bear things as best you could.

Having made that decision to share your life with a servant of the Crown; having decided to sacrifice your career; having accepted the sub-standard housing; having understood that to a lesser or greater degree your existence would be governed by written and unwritten military rules; you then find that your husband is routinely snatched away for half year periods. The effects on your own self-esteem can be startling. Your physical health can suffer visibly, but it’s the emotional impacts of absence that are felt hardest. The joys and pains of ordinary life fall and are put squarely on your shoulders to deal with.

In the early days of our marriage, Doug missed the birth of both of our children. The second, Luke, was already six weeks old before his father finally saw him. Countless birthdays, anniversaries and Christmas mornings have come and gone without the man of the house being present.

But for the selfless efforts of my parents I do not know how I would have coped. Dealing with their deaths was tremendously difficult. Not only were my mum and dad no longer with me, the grief normally associated with losing loved ones was compounded by the disappearance of the only practical pillar of support I had.

Reading back over what I have so far said I see that I have created an impression of treatment at the hands of an uncaring military something akin to domestic abuse.

There will be those shouting at their computers, “You should have bloody well left him.”

But how does anyone walk away from the most loving man I know? Someone who treats me like a princess when we are together? Someone who adores me, who plays his part in the home, who worships the children?

The privations are great, the time together often all too short, but the rewards, despite it all, are immense.

And through it all you adapt. For all the difficulties, I have managed to come to terms with my life and, just about, coped. You learn to be resilient, self-reliant. You establish a routine that is almost that of a one-parent family. Essential parts of this existence are the radio and TV. Each morning when Doug was away I would get up and turn on the news, trying to catch some detail about the latest war he was is involved in. The day ends in the exact same manner, hoping to see or hear an update, praying even that the footage on the box will portray a glimpse of my husband, giving some comfort that he is, for the moment at least, safe.

During the invasion of Iraq Doug actually seemed to be on the television all the time. Seeing him there helped ease the gut-wrenching fear that stays with me night and day when he is away. For soldiers themselves, danger is often a fleeting thing, something which might actually account for a very small part of their working lives. But for their families the anxiety is constant. We have no way of knowing when the danger is present and when it is absent, so instead we are condemned to always think the worst.

White lies told by the men themselves do little to alleviate the stress. Doug’s first tour of ‘Afghan’ supposedly involved doing a desk job at Kandahar Airfield. I should I have been reassured by this; I wanted to be reassured, but it wasn’t easy. Doug has always yearned to be out and about doing real soldiering. As much as I tried believing he was well out of harm’s way, I never quite did.

When he returned home on R & R with a broken nose, dislocated fingers and cuts and bruises he attempted to pass it off as nothing more than the result of vehicle accident at the base. I suspected something else. But it was only after Doug had returned to Helmand and I foolishly watched the Sean Langan Channel 4 film Fighting the Taliban – which documented an awful, bloody battle, and all too vividly showed my husband’s part in it – that I understood where he got his injuries from and just how lucky I was to have him back at all.

I wished I hadn’t seen the programme. For the final two months of that tour I lived the worst existence imaginable. My coping strategy was shattered and I was constantly on edge. Whilst he was still away I received news that he’d been awarded the Military Cross for his part in the horror that I sat through. This merely fuelled my imagination. If they were giving him such high recognition for his actions the risks involved must have been huge.

I know that I am not alone in my suffering. Today there are thousands of women – wives, girlfriends, mothers – who are going through what I have endured. In the years to come there will be many thousands more.

These women are the real backbone of the British Army, the ones who engender hope, courage and commitment in the soldiers sent away to fight. If only they were rewarded by officialdom with the respect and dignity they deserve. For they give a lifetime of service just as much as the sons, husbands and boyfriends they unflinchingly stand behind.

My husband’s career has been long and illustrious. He went from boy soldier to young ranger; from RSM to a commissioned officer. He has been honoured with the General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland Commendation, the Queens Commendation for Bravery, the NATO Meritorious Service Medal and that MC earned in Afghanistan.

Doug always says the medals are mine, as mush as they are his: that we have been through things together, even though so much of the time we have spent physically apart.

Going back to the question I asked at the start of this piece, the answer is both. But while the resentment is a passing emotion, the pride is always there. Though my husband rarely makes things easy for me, even now as we both get older and have not only children but grandchildren.

As it turned out Doug’s 12^th operational tour wasn’t his last. Despite what he said to me, despite what he promised, he went on to complete a third tour of Afghanistan. Today Doug still works with the Royal Irish. He promises me that he is now home for good. I’ve heard it all before and every time the phone rings I fear it will be them ringing. His other family. Making him an offer that’s just too good to resist.

This week’s piece in my ‘Women in the Military’ series was a guest article written by the wife of Captain Doug Beattie MC who he previously wrote about in this Channel 4 piece.  I am very grateful to her for sending me her words.

On Sunday 2nd August 2009 I remember exactly where I was.  I was sat at my breakfast table with a copy of The Sunday Telegraph in my hand.  I remember picking up the newspaper and seeing Sally Thorneloe’s picture.  It was a moment that will stay with me for a long time.

I only know three Welsh Guards, and of those three I only know one well.  I don’t know Sally Thorneloe, but there was something about the way she was looking into the camera that instantly, deeply affected me.  I did not need to read the headline, or the caption.  I did not even really need to read the rest of the article, and by the end of it I was sobbing.  What had happened to her was glaringly obvious from the look in her eyes.  The character, the defiance.  The indescribable pain, yet the overriding determination not to be seen as weak.  I won’t pretend I know what it’s like to lose the love of your life, but I felt a sudden affinity with those eyes.  They told the story of every military partner’s worst nightmare, but they also told of strength.

I won’t rip off the Sunday Telegraph article so delicately composed by Olga Craig just weeks after Lt Col Thorneloe’s death, so instead of retelling her story I have included it below, linked and verbatim.  I would simply like to pay tribute to a lady who lost ‘her best friend, her soul mate and her hero’ almost exactly three years ago, on the 1^st July 2009.  The Welsh Guards are currently deployed again in Afghanistan.

Widow of Lt Col Rupert Thorneloe: ‘Rupert found his moment of Heaven in Helmand’

By Olga Craig, Assistant Editor, The Sunday Telegraph

7:00AM BST 02 Aug 2009

Sally Thorneloe told The Sunday Telegraph of the last telephone conversation she had with Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe before his death on July 1.

It was one of those perfect English summer Sundays: the sort that are heaven-sent for a languid, laughter-filled family day out. Sally Thorneloe and her daughters, Hannah and Sophie, had spent the day with family friends in Ketterick. Hannah, four, and the boisterous two-year-old Sophie, had squealed with delight as they bounced on a trampoline in the back garden. ”They kept calling out: ‘Daddy’s coming home soon. Daddy’s coming home’,” Mrs Thorneloe says, a slow, bittersweet smile spreading across her face at the memory. On the way back to their Aldershot home, stuck in a long traffic jam, Mrs Thorneloe pulled into a lay-by and tried to entertain her exhausted daughters with word games. ”Then my mobile rang. And it was Rupert. It was such a lovely, lovely surprise,” she says.

No one knows when an innocuous phone call, an everyday, chance conversation, may be the last words one will exchange with a loved one. But, as the wife of a British officer on active service in the desert heat and horror of Helmand province, Sally Thorneloe knew that each phone call from her husband, no matter how brief or how snatched, were words to be cherished.

”And as the date of his return home comes closer and closer those calls become more buoyant, more carefree,” Mrs Thorneloe says. ”When your husband first leaves you feel the separation so keenly. It’s difficult not to become frustrated and a little terse at times on the phone. But as the homecoming comes closer, you become closer. You make plans. There was our fifth wedding anniversary on his first week home. And the girls were so excited.” As Mrs Thorneloe chatted to her husband, gaily reminding him that it was less than three weeks until he would be home, Sophie began calling out: ”Daddy, Daddy.”

”It was her new word. She had learned it since she had last spoken to her father. Rupert heard her in the background and he just couldn’t believe it. I put her on and she was shouting: ”Daddy, Daddy.” Rupert was so thrilled. It was the first time he had heard her say it. He told me he couldn’t wait to see and hear Sophie call him Daddy when he got home. Then he talked to Hannah and she told him all about her day. It was such a lovely, relaxed, family phone call and I’m so glad I wasn’t cross with Rupert about anything.”

Sophie’s father never did get to see her say Daddy. That final, fateful phone call, on Sunday, June 28, was his last to his family. Three days later, on July 1, Colonel Rupert Thorneloe, the charismatic Commanding Officer 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, died when his Viking armoured vehicle was blasted from beneath by a Taliban improvised explosive device (IED).

His death has meant that Sally Thorneloe, loving wife and devoted mother will, for ever more, be defined by the unenviable sobriquet that history has thrust upon her: widow of the highest ranking British officer to be killed on active service for more than a quarter of a century. Not since Lt Colonel H Jones died in 1982, during an assault at Goose Green in the Falklands War, has the Army lost such a senior officer on the battlefield.

When Lt Colonel Thorneloe, 39, died, alongside his driver, Trooper Joshua Hammond, 18, en route to the front to rendezvous with his men, the Army lost an inspirational and outstandingly talented officer. At his funeral service in the Guards Chapel at the Wellington Barracks in London on July 16, which was attended by Prince Charles, Colonel in Chief and a close friend, the then head of the Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt and scores of senior officers,

Lt Colonel Thorneloe was described as ”quite simply the best of his generation” and as a leader who was ”calm in a crisis and, in success, modest”.

Sally Thorneloe, however, lost much, much more. She lost the man she says was: ”my best friend, my soul mate and my hero. The man who always made me feel like I was the best person ever when I was with him. He was such a big man in every sense. I felt so protected and secure and loved around Rupert. And I miss him so very, very much. Shortly before he died, he told me in a phone call that he had been ‘out on his travels’, as he called being on patrol, the night before. ‘Oh Sal,’ he said, ‘last night I slept in a mulberry grove. And it was so beautiful. It was a little like waking in the Garden of gethsemane. I fell asleep listening to Pachelbel’s Canon on my iPod.’ I found the thought of that so comforting: there he was, in Helmand, yet he had found his moment of Heaven.”

Lost in silence for a moment, tears threatening and her lips trembling, Mrs Thorneloe turns to the mantelpiece, picking up a framed photograph taken on her wedding day – July 24, 2004. The black and white picture of her and Rupert – she clutching her bouquet and hitching up her wedding gown, he, a big bear of a man in top hat and tails, beaming proudly – was taken in Oxford moments after the ceremony in St Giles church. ”I love this photograph but I only spotted something in it last week,” she says, her voice breaking now. ”We are walking past a placard advertising a recital of the Canon. We had just had it played at our wedding, it was Rupert’s favourite piece of music. And, then, of course,” she says, the tears now falling, ”it was played in the Guards Chapel, at Rupert’s funeral.”

In the weeks since her husband died Mrs Thorneloe, 43, has learned more than one would ever want to know of the anguished world of the bereaved. ”I have been given a life that I don’t want,” she says. ”Facing the future is a bleak and unforgiving thought. I keep thinking how long will I feel like this? But my girls are my salvation and they are my future. Sophie is so terribly young and, realistically, the possibility of her having any meaningful memories of Rupert are so heartbreakingly low. She still runs around the house calling for her Daddy and when she sees him on television she jumps up and down with excitement, but she is much too young to understand death. She knows something is wrong. She knows that Daddy hasn’t come home. She knows that everyone is sad, that everything is different. And I know that nothing will ever be the same.”

Telling her older daughter Hannah of her father’s death was, Mrs Thorneloe admits, one of the most painful moments of her life. ”I was told of Rupert’s death late in the evening of the day before Hannah’s school broke up. The next day, when she came home, the padre was with me. I sat her down on the sofa, where she always lay with Rupert, and said: ”I have something very sad to tell you. You know that Daddy’s been at work in Afghanistan. Very sadly Daddy has died and he can’t come back.’

”Hannah looked so bereft, so bewildered. She got upset and then asked if she could do some colouring. Children live in the moment and are naïve about pain, and I’m so grateful for that. Since then we have talked such a lot about Rupert. At first I was terrified that somehow she would forget her memories of him. But I know she won’t. She was such a Daddy’s girl. She adored Rupert, she was utterly obsessed with him. She looks so like him and has so many of his mannerisms.”

Sally Thorneloe knew little, she confesses, of the rigours and demands of being an Army wife when she married. She and her husband met ”through friends of friends” and their mutual love of sailing in the autumn of 2001. ”I kept hearing of this wonderful man called Rupert,” she says. ”The first time I met him I was struck by his beaming smile. It lit up his face and seemed to light up everyone else’s. We spent a lot of time sailing: around the Isle of Wight, drinking tea in the cockpit of Valentina, his boat. And then coming home for a big glass of red burgundy. I just adored him.”

After a two-year courtship, with a tour of Germany in the offing, Rupert proposed, producing a surprise platinum and diamond engagement ring. ”He just announced: ‘I’ve got something for you,’ she laughs. He was good at surprises.” Four weeks before Mrs Thorneloe’s 39th birthday, the couple married. Hannah, a honeymoon baby, was born on May 5, 2005 – Father’s Day in Germany. ”We had just sold the boat because we needed a car. And a pram, too, as it turned out.” On May 10, 2007, Mrs Thorneloe gave birth to Sophie. ”I was a little worried that Rupert might be disappointed not to have a son but he laughed at me and said: ‘No, I always wanted girls.’”

As an Army wife, one must be resilient. To acknowledge that there will be long and lonely separations and that there will be, too, the distinct possibility of violent death on a distant battlefield. ”I remember Rupert almost warning me off a little before we married,” Mrs Thorneloe says. ”But if you fall in love with a surgeon you don’t decide not to marry him because he works long hours and might be home late in the evening. Being a soldier was part and parcel of who Rupert was. You couldn’t separate the man from the officer. He was deeply passionate about the Army, he couldn’t possibly have been anything other than a soldier.”

But death was something neither truly contemplated. ”We never really spoke of the possibility of Rupert dying. Because neither of us ever, for a moment, thought that he would. If you dwell on that sort of thing you would never get out of bed in the morning. The only time we touched on it was when Rupert told me whose funerals he would come back for. I remember saying: ‘Gosh, in the unimaginable event, what am I going to do Rupert? Where am I going to go? What am I going to do? He didn’t say much. Just something about how Wiltshire, where we often talked of moving to, would be a nice place to live. We just never, ever thought Rupert would die.

”The Army was his passion. Yet in a strange but sad way it has only been since Rupert’s death that I have truly grown to admire and understand why he loved the military so much. And the wealth of support and compassion I have received from the Army has been truly overwhelming.”

Lt Colonel Thorneloe, however, came from a family steeped in military tradition. His father is a retired major who was immensely proud of his son. The colonel had been educated at Radley and the University of Reading before being commissioned into the Welsh Guards in 1992. He served in Germany, Northern Ireland and Iraq (for which he was awarded the MBE in 2006). Before being sent to Helmand, he served as an aide to Des Browne, then Defence Secretary, in Whitehall.

”That was Rupert’s ultimate job,” Mrs Thorneloe says. ”For him it was the pinnacle: it combined his twin loves, the Army and politics. When he was in Whitehall Rupert would call Hannah every night, on the dot of seven. She used to ask? ‘Will Daddy be home before I go to bed.’ Some nights she would hear his key in the latch. He would drop his bike and run upstairs to see her. For Hannah, being older, his leaving to go on tour was so very difficult. She and her Daddy were inseparable.”

While in Helmand, of course, the phone conversations were all too often snatched and the homecomings few and far between. Colonel Thorneloe’s last leave was at Christmas. ”It was a real family affair, with stockings for the girls and lots of present opening,” Mrs Thorneloe recalls. All too soon, however, her husband had to return to the front line. ”I always tried not to get too emotional when Rupert left, but we sat drinking tea for an hour together before he went and I told him how much I loved him and how much the girls loved him. He knew that, but I got to tell him that which is important.”

Then, of course, came Wednesday, July 1: the day Colonel Thorneloe died. ”They ring the door bell, that is how you know,” she says simply. It was 9.20 in the evening when two officers from the Welsh Guards came to break the news. ”I saw the green shadows through the glass and I remember thinking it’s late for welfare to call. The second I opened the door and saw their faces, I knew. I just knew.”

The Army, a well-oiled machine when one of its own is lost, immediately enveloped the family, preparing them for the repatriation of the bodies.

”The part of that day that I will never forget is the sound of the aeroplane as it approached,” Mrs Thorneloe says. ”It was very important to me to have Rupert home. We stood side by side with Joshua’s family, the Hammonds, and we both watched our men come home.”

Mrs Thorneloe spent some private time alone with her husband and, on July 16, the day of his funeral, she stood ramrod straight as his coffin was carried into the Guards Chapel by eight Welsh Guards. Sombre in black, she stood by her mother-in-law, Veronica, both women clasping hands as they bade their final farewells. ”It was really important to me that I was strong for Rupert. That might sound ridiculous but I felt so much that that was what Rupert deserved: that we who loved him most stood proud.”

After the service Prince Charles, who attended with his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, spoke privately to the Thorneloe family. ”He was incredibly compassionate. Very caring and sensitive. Rupert would have been humbled,” Mrs Thorneloe says.

In the bleak days that have followed there have been many emotional moments. Unlike many of his comrades, Colonel Thorneloe did not leave a letter for his wife. ”At first I was desperate, I so wanted to have one to read, to have it in my hand. But I know how much Rupert loved me and the girls, and that is what matters.” On July 24, which would have been the couple’s fifth wedding anniversary, Mrs Thorneloe spent several hours at her husband’s graveside at the family plot in west Oxfordshire. ”Rupert always loved the rain and, strangely, it has rained every day since he died,” she says. ”As I stood there, in a downpour, I suddenly felt that, somehow, in that rain I was closer to Rupert. I used to hate the rain, now I have come to love it. It reminds me of Rupert, carrying one of the girls, when they were babies, in a papoose. With a great big umbrella to shelter them from the rain.”

There can be no doubt that Rupert Thorneloe was an inspirational leader: as Brigadier Tim Radford, commander of Task Force Helmand, said: ”He died as he had lived, leading from the front.” The fact that he did so. That on the day he died he was travelling to meet his men, cost him his life.

”Of course I think of that,” Mrs Thorneloe says. ”But Rupert was passionate about what the Army was doing in Afghanistan. He believed utterly in the job that he was doing in Helmand. He was truly living his dream.”

Mrs Thorneloe is well aware, of course of the mounting controversy over what is perceived as the Government’s lack of support for the Armed forces. Indeed her father-in-law has stated publicly that it has failed to ”put defence first”. July was the bloodiest month so far in the fight against the Taliban. During the five weeks of Operation Panther’s Claw, which plunged British forces into ferocious combat, 22 soldiers died and 57 were injured. As the coffins of yet more young soldiers, covered by the Union flag and carried by comrades, make the solemn journey through the streets of Wootton Bassett, so the clamour for more helicopters, for more heavily armoured vehicles and more troops has grown from a public that, increasingly, believes its soldiers are being sent to war ill-armed and ill-equipped.

Many argue that, had more helicopters been available, Lt Colonel Thorneloe would not have been travelling in a Viking – a vehicle that is inadequately armoured to withstand IEDs and which is due to be replaced next year by the more robust Warthog. It is not a subject Mrs Thorneloe wishes to discuss. All she will say is one, carefully constructed sentence. ”I have thought about it,” she concedes. ”But I will let other people talk.” Her husband, she emphasised, was committed to the Army’s role in Afghanistan. ”He believed in it utterly.”

In the past week the Welsh Guards have built a trampoline in the Thorneloes’ back garden. ”The girls and I bounce on it and reach up to the sky, to be nearer to Daddy, I tell them. I am just so devastated that Rupert is not here. But I can’t be cross with him for doing what he passionately believed in. When he got into that vehicle that day he wasn’t thinking: ‘today’s the day.’ He was just thinking I want to go to see my soldiers. The quickest way that I can. That was Rupert.”

The Welsh Guards are in the process of setting up the Welsh Guards Afghanistan appeal. Donations can be sent to Regimental HQ, Welsh Guards, Birdcage Walk, London SW1E 6HQ. Cheques may be made payable to ”The Welsh Guards Afghanistan Appeal.”

http://www.welshguardsappeal.com/

A: When she’s a male surgeon called James Barry.

I must admit, Dr James Barry is one of my favourite biographies.  Although vague in parts and comprised of assumptions made by respected historians, the bare bones of this story invoke my inner rebel, the feminist that lurks within.  Women couldn’t qualify as doctors in the late 18^th and early 19^th century.  Women couldn’t join the military as officers.  What do you do when the rules suppress your ambition?  You find a way to circumvent them.  Not only that, you circumvent them with style and panache.  You do it bigger and better than anyone has before.

The first ever woman to qualify as a medical doctor in Britain did it disguised as a man.  Dr James Barry was born in Cork as Margaret Ann Bulkley in 1789.

The fact that Margaret and James were the same person only came to light in 2008, when letters were found between Margaret and her parents and between James and the family solicitor.  On the back of one of the letters from James, his solicitor had carefully written ‘Miss Bulkley’.  Alison Reboul, a document analysis expert with the now defunct Forensic Science Service concluded during 2007 and 2008 investigations that the letters were written by the same person and the full evidence tying the two together was introduced by Dr Michael du Preez in the New Scientist Magazine in 2008.

Michael du Preez’ evidence was thus:  In November of 1809 the Bulkley family’s financial records showed that Margaret and her mother sailed from Wapping in London to Leith in Scotland.  Somewhere on that voyage they made the decision to change Margaret into James, and upon enrolling at the University of Edinburgh ‘James’ wrote to the family solicitor asking for all his letters to be addressed to his ‘aunt’ Mrs Bulkley, Margaret’s mother.  The letter also referred to that same journey on the boat.  Now recognised as a man, James Barry graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1812.

After six months at St Thomas’ Hospital in London, she joined the army as a surgeon in 1813.  She quickly became famous within the service for her talent and flair for medicine.  So good in fact, she went on to conduct the first successful caesarean section – where both mother and baby survived – in medical history in Cape Town in 1826.

She rose to become Colonial Medical Inspector in the Cape, and was a strict boss, earning herself a Court-Martial for her over enthusiastic efforts to improve conditions for female patients in St Helena.  She was credited personally with improved hygiene and health of inmates in the prisons and leper colonies.

Her service was not unblemished and she came very close to being unceremoniously removed from the Army on more than one occasion.  She padded out her coat with shoulder pads to increase her frame and wore 3inch heeled boots.  Hot headed and feisty, James was known to challenge foes aggressively and on one occasion actually shot a man in a duel.  Despite being small of stature she had an air of authority and exuded confidence, with her skills as a surgeon ensuring she was never discharged from service despite finding herself under arrest fairly regularly.

She also earned notoriety for her intimate relationship with the Lord Charles Somerset, which resulted in a libel action after the pair were accused of homosexuality.  Of course with hindsight we know that if a relationship was had at all, it would have been a heterosexual one!  Upon her death it was discovered that at some point she had been pregnant, and it is thought that she suffered a miscarriage whilst living in Mauritius.  If a guess were to be made at the father of her baby all arrows point to Somerset.

Eventually she was promoted to Inspector-General Surgeon to the British Army and is famed for being the only medical officer of record with the audacity to discipline Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War, whose methods Barry felt were unsanitary.  As Inspector General, Barry was in charge of all the military hospitals in the UK.

Her efforts to disguise her gender proved so effective that it was only when she died of dysentery in 1865 that her secret was discovered.  Sophia Bishop, the maid who laid out her body revealed that although she had spent 46 years masquerading as a man in the British Army, ‘James Barry’ was in fact a woman.   A woman who had posed as a man to become the first female medical graduate in Britain, fooled the Army into employing her and then fooled everyone for nearly half a century.

James Barry is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery in London, her gravestone bearing “his” name and rank as a mark of respect to the life she led.

In the Defence IQ Blogging Awards 2012