Never Broken

by Hannah Campbell

  Funnily enough, if I met a Lothario like him now as thirty-year-old me, I wouldn’t go for him. But at seventeen, a cocky, sure-footed guy taking an interest in me made him all the more attractive. My only other relationship had been with my childhood sweetheart, who I’d met at school. We’d both been shy, innocent and fumbling teenagers from the age of fifteen to when I joined the Army, so a worldly man in his late twenties seemed incredibly sophisticated.

  Right from the outset he made it very clear he wanted me, and he made his move at the earliest opportunity, when we were allowed to leave the barracks for the first time for a group meal, two months into Basic Training. We were only permitted two pints each but they went straight to my head after months without an alcoholic drink. After chatting me up, we shared a surreptitious kiss and the excitement was added to by the fact it had to be clandestine. Then he invited me back to his room, saying: ‘Would you like another drink?’ and I nervously agreed. After sneaking across the parade square to his quarters I ended up snogging the face off him. It was intoxicating and it would have been so easy to let myself be seduced, but I said: ‘No, I’m not happy to take things further yet.’ He was used to having young recruits as putty in his hands so he seemed taken aback that I wasn’t willing to sleep with him there and then, but I was adamant and I left, creeping back across the parade ground to sleep alone in my bed. From there it was a really slow-burner. He’d steal me away for a kiss whenever he could and he charmed me, taking me out for dinner several times a week and buying me small gifts.

  It was an exciting and heady courtship and to me the whole star-crossed lovers’ thing seemed incredibly romantic. For him, with hindsight, it was all about the thrill of the chase. After a few weeks he suggested taking a weekend’s leave at the same time. I stayed with a friend and he came and stayed in a nearby hotel, taking me out every night and wining and dining me while remaining the perfect gentleman. Though I still kept him at arm’s-length, I was falling head over heels for him. I was genuinely flattered and it was the first time in my life I had been treated like a lady and wooed. Back on camp, at every opportunity he would whisk me away for a snog. Even when we were getting our final measurements taken for our dress uniform for the passing-out parade he called me to his office for a clandestine kiss and a cuddle under the pretence of getting my belt for my uniform.

  Straight after my passing-out parade, instead of going home with my parents who had come down to watch, I went to London with a group from my platoon to consummate our relationship. Because the instructors get leave at the end of every passing out, he came to join me and we stayed in a luxury hotel. That night was memorable for what it was, as he taught me what sex without love could be. Although I thought I was in love with him, it wasn’t until I met my husband Jamie that I discovered how special that was. But for the first time in my life I knew what it was to desire a man and to be desired and charmed. A big part of the attraction was also the danger of dating a fickle charmer – he was like a kite on a blustery day. I also thought I was different and I could change him.

  We stayed together for almost a year, spending every weekend together. But within months our relationship became fraught. At first, I had no reason to be suspicious. My parents have been happily married for forty years and my only other boyfriend was my school sweetheart. Yet, as soon as each band of new blood came in every twelve weeks, people began to stir the pot and say he was up to no good and he’d been seen with this or that new recruit.

  In the end, perhaps predictably, he did break my heart. I found him out, having a relationship with a girl from another platoon, as a mutual friend had seen a sexy text he’d sent her confirming they were having an affair and she told me. When I confronted him, at least he was man enough to instantly admit it, saying: ‘Yes, that’s what I’m doing.’ I was terribly hurt at the time but I got over him. He taught me two very valuable lessons – if a man really likes you he’ll be prepared to wait. Second, never give up on love – you’ll find it again, even if your heart has been broken.

  After I completed my Basic Training I decided to initially train as a nurse in Gosport at the Royal Hospital Haslar and the University of Portsmouth. I thought it would be a way of using the skills I’d learnt and I would also learn some new skills, which I could use to help people, but literally from about day one I absolutely hated every second of it. I take my hat off to all the nurses who have helped me through the years as they have been instrumental in helping to save my life, but I just wasn’t cut out for it at all. I didn’t like the smell of the wards or the sight of blood that much. How ironic this is now, considering how much time I’ve spent both in wards and looking at my own blood!

  The light-bulb moment happened quickly that as I’d loved soldiering in Basic Training I should be in a trade where you still had the opportunity to do that, so I transferred into the Adjutant General’s Corps and an admin role. After being attached to an Infantry Unit, you then go and do your admin job but you do all the soldiering they do as well. This was the best of both worlds, I felt. My Phase Two training involved returning to Winchester for twelve weeks to learn a trade. I learned finance, the computer systems and accounting. Incredibly, Nikki from my Basic Training was also based at Winchester, so we struck up our friendship again where we’d left off.

  Then, towards the end of my Phase Two training, I was sat watching TV when Nikki came in to see me. She was upset and clearly in shock. ‘Hannah, please can I speak to you in confidence?’ she said. ‘I’ve got to tell someone what’s been happening as I don’t know what to do.’ I made her a cup of tea and she admitted she’d just discovered she was pregnant after splitting from her boyfriend and she faced the prospect of becoming a single mum. It was a hugely emotional time for her as she’d had a scan and the medical staff hadn’t let her see the images of her unborn baby because she hadn’t decided what she was going to do.

  Immediately I told her: ‘You should keep your baby as you will always regret it otherwise.’ She was worried she’d lose her Army career but I told her: ‘You’ll be fine. There’s no reason why you can’t still have a career in the Army as a mum. You can do everything if you really want to.’

  Just days later I joined 47 Regiment Royal Artillery at Thorney Island, near Portsmouth, and lost touch with Nikki. I didn’t know what her final decision was; I just hoped whatever she had chosen was the right choice for her.

  My first ‘real’ job in the Army was a world away from the horror of Iraq. I started at the Regimental Headquarters as an office junior initially for three months. It was a grindingly boring job, which primarily involved being the tea girl and photocopying and filing for the Commanding Officer, Adjutant and the Regimental Sergeant Major until they checked you had a head on your shoulders. Only when they knew you wouldn’t fuck up, did they let you loose and you were able to move on to more interesting work. One of the only perks was that for the first time in my Army career I was allowed to get my nails done – provided it was a natural-looking French manicure!

  From there, in late 2003, I moved on to being an administrative clerk, overseeing the paperwork of around 200 soldiers, which is a better class of office job. Even though I didn’t know it at the time this was a promotion that would lead me straight into the path of the man with whom I would fall in love and who would become my future husband.

  CHAPTER THREE

  JAMIE

  It certainly wasn’t the most orthodox or romantic of settings in which to lock eyes with the man who was to become your husband. Even now, the irony of my initial meeting with Corporal Jamie Campbell isn’t lost on either of us. Incredibly, I was posing as a blood- and mud-splattered amputee after volunteering to play a casualty in a re-enactment of injuries for people doing their battlefield First Aid training course.

  My task, throughout the day, was to portray someone whose arm had been blown up. I lay in a field, splattered in mud, in the pouring rain with a little tube that came up the side of me with a squirter for fake blood. The trainees
had to practise putting a tourniquet on my ‘injured’ arm and I had to then squirt the blood over them in order to make it as realistic as possible. I was far from looking my best and it was hardly a sexy scene or conducive to romance.

  Jamie was one of the instructors that day. Later I found out that he’d joined up in 1994 so he’d already served eight years in the Army. But I didn’t look twice at him – I was too busy mucking about, playing the invalid. After my experience with the charming instructor, I didn’t want to have my heart broken again, or get a reputation in the Army, as I’d never been that kind of girl. So men, other than having a laugh as one of the lads, were strictly off-limits for me.

  At the end of the day everyone who took part went out for drinks. When I nipped to the toilet, I came back and Jamie was chatting to my friend, who introduced him to me. There was no denying he was handsome, self-effacing, a proud Scot and a really kind person and it was his personality that won me over. So, when a few of us decided to go back for a block party in my room, I asked him to join us.

  Earlier that week I’d been learning to cannulate – where you put a needle in someone’s arm for a drip – and we’d ‘borrowed’ some cannulas to practise at home. In my drunken state I said: ‘Do you mind if I have a go on you?’ And he said: ‘Yeah, alright.’ I ended up taking the blood from his arm. It sounds weird but it was such an intimate act that I knew there was definitely a vibe going on between us, but I held back as there was no way anything else was going to happen. Jamie was the perfect gentleman – not only did he let me butcher him with an extremely long needle without complaint, he didn’t try it on with me at all. We just had a brilliant time and a laugh.

  At the end of the night when he went to leave, I drunkenly gave him my mobile number and said to him: ‘Text me!’ and he did, the day after and then every day after that. It was just daft stuff and funny comments about how his day had been; at that time it was nothing romantic. I knew I liked him and I could tell he felt the same but I was determined not to rush into something again. Although I loved spending time with him we only met in a group for I was determined that we were only going to be friends at that point.

  Jamie was ten years older than me and I’d been single since my disastrous fling so I wasn’t particularly bothered about meeting anyone, and particularly someone in the Army. So when he asked me out, slightly nervously, a few weeks later, I said: ‘I don’t think I want a boyfriend at the moment.’ He seemed a bit disappointed, but I shrugged it off. To some people, dating can seem like the best way to get over a broken heart but I didn’t want to rush headlong into another relationship. Army life was much more relaxed and there was a massive social life – much like being students at university – so I was having fun and I didn’t want to be tied down.

  Every night we’d be out somewhere and Jamie would inevitably end up joining us, which meant I was able to get to know him without any pressure. Even after I initially told him no, there was no awkwardness between us as he was just a lovely man and a great laugh. Based at Pirbright Barracks as an instructor, every evening he’d ride his motorbike the 60 miles to Gosport to come and see me. As weeks turned into months he made his feelings for me clear by the way he touched my arm and the attention he gave me, but he was never pushy. As we spent more and more time together, with our friends, I started to have feelings for him. Our mutual friends started ribbing us, saying: ‘When are you two going to get together?’ ‘Have you got together yet?’ and even ‘Have you sorted it out?’

  Everyone was asking us and seemed to know it was going to happen. I’d dismiss it, saying: ‘Don’t be silly,’ as I didn’t want to act on the spark developing between us. One night he had a few too many drinks and so I said he could sleep in my room, in my sleeping bag. From then on, whenever we went out, he slept on my floor and then later he shared my single bed, yet still nothing happened between us. He’d come out with my friends, we’d have a laugh but later he’d just cuddle me, we’d talk and we’d go to sleep with his alarm set for 5am the next morning to give him time to ride to work.

  He was so lovely and considerate that as time went by I fell completely head over heels for him and I knew Jamie was the man I wanted to be with. We went out for dinner and I said: ‘I know you’ve asked me out quite a few times, and my answer is “yes”. I love spending time with you.’ There was no going back from that moment. That night Jamie kissed me for the first time and it was incredible. My whole body tingled and I had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. That night we became lovers and it was like nothing I’d experienced before. I think being truly in love with someone is one of the most amazing things in the world. It was much deeper and more meaningful than I’d ever known. Things couldn’t get any better, I thought.

  Jamie was the first man I ever truly loved. I started making plans for him to meet Mum and Dad and we even talked about going on holiday to France. All our friends said: ‘Finally, you’ve got it together! What took you so long?’

  But three months into our relationship my bubble burst when I discovered that he wasn’t single after all. He’d left his phone on my bed while he had a shower and a text message flashed up on the screen from one of his mates, saying: ‘Have you told her yet?’ When he came back in the room I said to him: ‘Jamie, you’ve got this message. What have you got to tell me?’ His face went ashen and then he dropped a bombshell. He said: ‘I didn’t want you to find out this way but I’ve got a wife and two kids. We are separated and we’re not in a relationship anymore. I didn’t tell you as I knew it would put you off seeing me.’

  I stormed out of the room, completely devastated, and I felt so let down again. Distraught, I phoned my mum and told her the awful truth, confessing: ‘Mum, I love him. What am I going to do?’ She was surprisingly sanguine about the whole situation, saying: ‘As long as you are sure he’s separated and he’s telling the truth and provided you truly believe he is serious about you, then you’ve got to decide if you really like him. If you do really love him and you want to be with him then you’ve got to accept his history as that’s part of who he is. Being with him means you have to accept his children, so the next step is to ask him to meet them.’

  So I took my mum’s advice and I went back to my room where he was waiting and I sat on my bed and I said: ‘If we’re to make any sort of go of this there can’t be any more secrets. There’s no doubt I’d be happy to accept your children, but if you want to be with me you can’t be married to someone else.’

  Two weeks later I met Jamie’s children. I was really nervous, but his son Craig, who was then six years old, and his eight-year-old daughter Laura were both lovely and after I introduced myself, I took them to a local park and I just talked to them. Over time I told them I really liked their dad and I’d like to be a part of their lives too.

  Jamie proposed to me at the start of the summer of 2004 as soon as his divorce came through, nine months after we first met. He’d already rung my dad to ask his permission. There wasn’t a big ‘Will you marry me?’ grand gesture. Instead, he was driving in the car somewhere and he said out of the blue: ‘Shall we get married?’ I just said: ‘Yes, yes, of course I’ll marry you.’ In that moment I just knew it was right and that I wanted to be with him. He couldn’t afford to get me the ring he wanted to get me, so two days after he proposed we went to our local jewellers and together we chose a gold ring with a single cubic zirconia. It was modest, but it didn’t matter and Jamie promised that he’d replace it, when we could afford to do so, with a diamond ring.

  I was just nineteen, and while some people may think I was young, I knew it was right. Both of us had to write letters to our Commanding Officers asking for permission to marry. It’s a courtesy and tradition that is followed to this day. After permission was given, including a two-week holiday for our honeymoon, I couldn’t wait to be Jamie’s wife.

  Organising a big white wedding and keeping everyone happy was a bigger headache than I thought. At nineteen years old I had a romantic ideal of lov
e and everything started to get on top of me as we made lists of guests, who would be sitting where, where the venue would be, what we’d eat for the wedding breakfast, what canapés we should have, what dress I would wear, all the stuff that I just didn’t want to do. So I eloped. I rang Mum and said: ‘I’ve decided to just go and do it.’ At first she was taken aback, particularly as she and Dad had put down a huge amount of money for our reception at a local hotel. But she called me back and said: ‘Hannah, at the end of the day just do what makes you happy.’

  Jamie just wanted to get married, so I booked in at the Register Office and got the next available slot the following month. On the morning of my wedding, on 30 June 2003, I didn’t even have a dress. I ran to a wedding shop in town, managed to grab an off-the-peg plain white silk dress that I liked that was in my size and a matching shawl, then I spotted a pretty gold tiara and I bought them all. Then, I went into a nearby florist and lied: I said was getting married, my florist had let me down and could she make me a bouquet on the spot? She dropped everything and made me a loose bouquet of long-stem roses. Finally, I went into Debenhams department store and managed to persuade one of the girls on the Chanel cosmetic counter to do my make-up for free. Then I got dressed and turned up at the Register Office, where we were married with two of our closest friends: Private Becky Lovick, who I’d met during Basic Training, and Corporal Nick Manning, who had served alongside Jamie for twelve years, as our witnesses. I’ve never been one to follow convention and for me it was the perfect wedding.

  Afterwards, I rang my parents and said: ‘I’ve done it, I’m married!’ On the one hand, Mum was happy that I was happy but, understandably, deep down I know they were both gutted not to have seen their only daughter walk down the aisle on her wedding day. Back then I didn’t feel bad as I was in love and I was now Mrs Campbell and it was spontaneous and romantic. If I want something I’m very determined and I make sure I get it and the truth is we were deliriously happy.