Even now I look at my wedding pictures, taken as we walked out of the Register Office, and it makes me smile as we had big, beaming grins on our faces. Jamie had worn his Regimental Kilt and he looked so handsome and you can see how in love we were. At that point we didn’t really care what anyone else thought, we just were wrapped up in each other.
Afterwards we headed to a local brasserie, where we had the most expensive champagne on the menu and toasted our new life together. We didn’t ring Jamie’s parents as we decided to drive to Scotland and so we turned up at their door, announcing; ‘We’ve got married!’ They were surprised we’d gone ahead before our planned big day but they were still delighted. Our wedding night was spent at a local hotel in the countryside. We were given a four-poster and they put rose petals on the bed and a bottle of champagne and chocolates.
Our two-week honeymoon was spent moving into a semi-detached Army married quarters in Thorney Island, which was our first home together. It was totally bare, with two bedrooms, standard Army-issue magnolia paint throughout, a blue bathroom and a green carpet. Although it wasn’t the stuff dreams were made of, it represented us starting a life together, so we loved it. At first we sat on beanbags with two second-hand mugs, toasting our new life together with a pot of tea because as newly-weds we didn’t have any money and we had no furniture. Mum and Dad soon forgave my impetuousness and they bought us sofas for our wedding present, which was the first bits of furniture we ever owned together. Mum then gave us old plates, and Jamie’s mum gave us loads of her old furniture: a coffee table, chairs and a dining room suite and wardrobes as she was moving to a smaller house. We also laid laminate flooring over the carpet in the sitting room and painted it a cheerful yellow. The final touch was buying a barbecue so we could have our friends round in the evenings. So we had everything we needed.
Jamie and I were deeply in love at the beginning. We still loved each other at the end, but it was just in a different way. Throughout our marriage he treated me like a princess – he was so kind, probably too lovely. I was always strong-willed and I thought I was the tougher one of the two of us, while he just wanted to love and cherish me.
Within three months of getting married I decided I wanted a baby. ‘Jamie, how would you feel about becoming a dad again?’ I asked him. I said I could stop taking contraception and we could just see what happened. He was very laid-back about it and he said: ‘Yes, if it happens, it happens.’ I’d always known I wanted a family. I knew we’d be good parents – we were happy together, and we were financially secure so it was the next natural step to take.
It may seem strange, as I’d only recently been promoted to Lance Corporal, but I believed I could handle being an Army mum. In fact, I thought the world was my oyster and that with a baby I’d have a career and a family; I’d have it all. I fell pregnant with Milly shortly before we celebrated our first wedding anniversary. When I missed my period I bought a pregnancy test and I waited until Jamie came home to try it. When it came up positive we were overjoyed. Jamie hugged me and his tears welled up and he just kept saying: ‘I can’t believe we’re going to have a baby!’ Then I rang Mum and I told her: ‘You’re going to be a granny!’ She was thrilled, then she asked me if I was going to give up work and I said: ‘No way! There’s a great nursery and I love the Army. I definitely want to be a working mum.’
The next day I went in to work and told my Commanding Officer, who said congratulations, and life continued pretty much as normal. Jamie took the afternoon off to come to my first scan at three months and it was incredibly emotional seeing for the first time a little peanut on the screen and a heartbeat and knowing it was our baby. I remember he said: ‘It’s so amazing we are going to have a little boy or a little girl of our own’, and I couldn’t wait for us to have a family.
Being pregnant in the Army was hard work, but I was looked after and supported and then something amazing happened, which was a huge help. I was told a new Private was joining my office and as soon as she walked in, I couldn’t believe it. It was Private Nikki Jarvis, my friend from Basic Training. The minute we were alone she gave me the biggest smile and hug ever and said: ‘I couldn’t believe it when I found out I’d be working with you.’ Then she pulled out a photo from her pocket of her daughter Chloe, who was six months old. She had tears in her eyes as she told me: ‘I decided to keep her. Thank you for your advice. It was the best decision I have ever made in my life.’
For me it was an incredible moment to see that not only had she made the right decision, but she was also making it work as an Army mum. Being pregnant with Milly I’d felt a bit scared that my career wouldn’t work out. Now I had the reassurance that if Nikki could do it as a single mum, I could do so too. So I told her I too was now pregnant. She immediately congratulated me and gave me another massive hug – it felt like fate had put her back in my path as from that day on, as an Army mum and Army mum-to-be, we were inseparable. We sat gossiping every day instead of doing our work. It didn’t matter how rough I was feeling, I turned up for work every single day – even when I had the most horrific morning sickness. More often than not, Nikki would say: ‘You don’t have to do that, I’ll cover that duty for you.’
There were a few occasions when I was really bad and when my boss, the Sergeant Major, saw me, he said: ‘Go and get your head down for a couple of hours and if you feel up to it, come back.’ More often than not, if I was ill Nikki covered and without her I’d have really struggled. As well as helping me at work she advised me on what cream to buy to avoid stretch marks, gave me some of her baby clothes and even felt my baby kick in my tummy in the office before Jamie did. I’d cover for her when she was off having her nails done and she’d do the same for me when I nipped out for fifteen minutes to get my eyelashes tinted by one of the mums on camp who was a beautician. We were always up to something, whether it was dodging work or trying to get out of being the tea girls. When we got sick of our boss asking for cup after cup of tea every day, we even tried squirting washing-up liquid in his tea. Instead of making his own he said our tea tasted so bad, we needed practice and he’d ask us to make even more cups for him.
There were only two big changes once I announced I was pregnant and apart from that my work continued as before. The first was that I didn’t have to do obstacle courses anymore and I only did the PT that I wanted to do. Secondly, because I didn’t get big enough to require a maternity uniform, I was allowed to wear no belt and my shirt un-tucked to cover my little bump. No one was ever negative: if anything, people wanted to look after me more as I was a mum-to-be and almost every rough, tough soldier I knew asked to see my baby scan when I came back to work after having it done.
But I always wanted to pull my weight. Two days before I gave birth I was lugging boxes of paper up and down stairs in the stock room as I was young and fit and it didn’t occur to me this wasn’t what everybody did. It was my first pregnancy and other female soldiers who were pregnant just got on with it. No one was forcing me to lug the boxes up and down the stairs – I did it because I wasn’t ill, I was pregnant.
I breezed through the whole thing, with no problems or complications until I went into labour on 3 April 2005 – dead on my due date. It began early in the morning and after driving me to the maternity ward, Jamie held my hand throughout, encouraging me when the contractions got stronger and more frequent. But when I got to 10cm dilated, Milly’s heart rate dropped and she went into distress. Immediately, the midwives and doctors went into overdrive and I ended up being rushed in to have an emergency caesarean (C-section) to save her life. Jamie was brilliant and he was my rock all the way through, supporting me and keeping me calm.
As I was still laid up in the operating theatre, as soon as Milly was born at 9pm they placed her in the crook of my arm. Initially she cried noisily, but as soon as I put her against my heart she just looked up at me peacefully. I felt such a massive surge of love and Jamie was so elated he started crying with relief. After she was handed to him, he cud
dled her and he started singing her a Scottish lullaby. He was allowed to stay until 11pm, but then he had to leave me on the maternity ward. The next morning he was back at the crack of dawn and he said: ‘I haven’t slept a wink as I couldn’t believe it.’
Although Milly wasn’t Jamie’s first child, he still made the experience incredibly special for me. I felt like I had it all. As soon as she heard I’d had a caesarean, Nikki was round, helping out all the time. Along with Mum she helped me with my washing, ironing and housework until I recovered. I got three months paid maternity leave followed by statutory maternity pay, so as soon as I was well enough to get out and about, Nikki introduced me to the Army wives. There was a great social and support network between them and you could always pop in to see someone for coffee, some advice or just a chat. For me, it was nice to meet the other halves behind the men.
The Army wives are the unsung heroes in many ways. They are the ones who stay behind and hold everything together. Army life would grind to a halt without them. It wasn’t until I had Milly that I truly appreciated how essential they are. Their husbands disappear for six months at a time, they have three or four kids, yet they are the glue that holds everything together. And when the husbands come back, they might not be quite the same as the men who left, especially if it’s been traumatic, and yet their wives support them and pick up the pieces. It’s not easy being married to the Army. I was so grateful when they really welcomed me for it’s an extraordinary support network.
Back at home, Jamie and I had to find our feet as new parents and right from the start, he wanted to be a hands-on dad. Even when I was on maternity leave he said that he didn’t want to miss out so we made a little agreement that he would get home from work, play with Milly for an hour before bath-time and then put her to bed. While he was doing that, I would cook tea. That was his way of balancing things out. He showed me how to do nappies as he’d been there before, and when I was exhausted after being up all night when Milly was ill or teething, he’d tell me to stay in bed and he’d do the feed. Jamie also loved taking her out. He has always been a keen photographer and they’d travel all over the place to go and get photos of a landscape in the middle of nowhere.
I had a lovely six months off before returning full throttle to Army life, but this time with a little one in tow. From day one I had to be on PT Parade at 7.10am after dropping Milly off at nursery. PT usually involved a run or a Tab, which is marching at speed, carrying weights. So to juggle our work and baby commitments Nikki and I worked out a rota. Without Nikki, I don’t think I’d have survived being an Army mum. Whoever wasn’t on duty would go and pick the kids up from nursery in the evening. Jamie often worked away but when he was at home he’d also do his share. Between the three of us we managed to keep all the plates spinning most of the time and a few months after coming back, I was promoted to Corporal.
Part of returning to work involved ‘Remedial PT’ at lunch-times: the gym or circuit training, which was never easy. Again, Nikki was still completing hers after her baby, so I had someone to go with. I struggled after the baby to get back to full fitness because of my caesarean and it was specifically aimed at people like me. It wasn’t the usual ‘beasting’ – it was aimed at building you back up. There was also a weight-loss clinic, which helped me shed the baby weight, and within seven months I’d snapped back into shape and I was as fit as I was before.
As Nikki lived up the road from me in the barracks we were always in and out of each other’s quarters so our girls grew up like sisters. On the odd days where she or I had been kept up all night with a sick or teething baby we’d cover while one of us had a lie-in, saying: ‘She’s just gone sick to the Medical Centre’, knowing full well the other was probably still in bed. We weren’t an unusual case in the junior ranks. Everyone covers for one another – it’s drummed into you in Basic Training to work as a team. But as fellow mums, we definitely had a special bond. If one of us ran out of nappies, Calpol or just needed to let off some steam, then I was there for Nikki and she was there for me.
Before going to war I didn’t think that anything would change despite being a serving mum. I didn’t even consider not returning to work – I liked the idea of my daughter having a role model of a mum who worked and was independent. I also liked being a mum in the Army as I’d got to know the Army wives as much as their husbands so I had the privileges of both sides of the world. It didn’t occur to me ever to leave after having her and I managed to balance it – I didn’t always get things perfect but I did the best I could, even though it wasn’t always easy.
One night we were told we would be called up for a training parade at 5.30am to see how fast we could get our kit together if we needed to. We had no idea when it was going to happen, just that it was something that could happen at any time, so because I had Milly to factor into the equation, I forward planned. I always had my kit ready to go in a bag by my bed just in case of an early roll call. It was sod’s law, of course, that Jamie was away and he couldn’t help me get out of the door. So I threw on my kit – my T-shirt was inside out under my Camo jacket but I knew no one would notice that.
Then I realised: ‘Shit, what am I going to do with Milly? Well, there’s no other option, Nursery doesn’t open for hours, and I can’t put her on one of the other mums at this ungodly hour of the morning, so she’ll just have to come to the parade ground with me,’ I thought. So I dressed her in her warmest romper suit and gloves, and grabbed the car chair that we kept by the front door. The whole point was to make sure we could react quickly and so I ran out of the door. I’ll never forget the CO’s face when I marched up, bold as brass with Milly in her baby seat in one arm, and saluted with my other arm, although he was clearly secretly quite impressed as I was one of the first arrivals. Then Nikki quick-marched down, carrying her kit and baby Chloe in a car chair too. Luckily, neither of the girls started screaming so we popped them down side by side together at the edge of the parade ground with a toy to keep them occupied. Then we did the inspection and when we were dismissed, we picked up our babies, went home, had showers ready for work and then dropped our daughters off at nursery as normal and carried on with our day’s work. My saving grace was that Milly was a good-natured baby. If she’d been bad through the night, I don’t know what I would have done! I still got the odd sleepless night but as it was my first baby I didn’t know any different. Jamie was also a hands-on dad. He never shied from changing a nappy in the middle of the night or doing his bit when she wanted a feed.
For the first year after Milly was born, being a new mum I was protected from deployment abroad. Jamie wasn’t, so at the time I just kept my fingers crossed he wouldn’t be sent away. By the time Milly was two, soldiers had started to frequently go on six-month tours of Iraq and Afghanistan. Saddam Hussein had been overthrown and, memorably, I’d watched on TV as his statue was toppled from Firdaus Square in downtown Baghdad in spring 2003. At the same time, Afghanistan had a declining security situation and growing insurgency and NATO had agreed to take a leadership role in providing security in and around Kabul.
Slowly but surely, British regiments were being deployed and I knew that sooner or later it would impact on us and that one of us would be called up for a tour. It’s funny, but neither of us wanted to talk about the inevitable, so we just carried on with family life. I was doing all my training exercises and so I knew either Jamie or I would be deployed. It must have been playing on Jamie’s mind as one night he said: ‘What shall we do if one of us is called up?’ ‘We’ll deal with it when it happens,’ I replied. I just couldn’t face the thought of it so I didn’t want to have the chat, but internally I was dreading the inevitable – that one or both of us would be deployed.
CHAPTER FOUR
GOING TO WAR
Privately, I always hoped and prayed we wouldn’t be called up for deployment in Iraq or Afghanistan. It was like an unspoken conversation between Jamie and myself that I hoped to God we would never have to face. Sadly, that wasn�
�t to be. On 10 February 2007, Jamie was called in by his Commanding Officer and told that he would be deployed to Afghanistan with his regiment and given the dates. In an awful twist of fate, later that week, I was called by my Commanding Officer and told I had been selected to deploy to Iraq. Because we were parents the Army wanted to ensure one of us would stay at home with Milly, who was still only two years old, so it became a decision as to who would stay behind and who would go. My CO said: ‘Go home, have a chat with your husband and decide what you want to do and come back to me with your plan tomorrow.’
That night, Jamie and I sat down over a cup of tea and hammered it out. He said: ‘My whole regiment is deploying to Afghanistan so it makes sense for me to go and for you to stay with Milly.’ But I wasn’t having any of it. I said: ‘Well, I’ve been picked up on a trawl and I think I should go to Iraq as there’s less risk out there and Milly needs her daddy as she grows up.’
A trawl is where individuals who have certain skills that are required in the theatre of war are chosen for deployment. This meant instead of going with 47 Regiment, whom I was attached to, I would go by myself and I’d be attached to another regiment once I arrived. Jamie was ten years older than me and I felt he’d already done his time as he’d served in Northern Ireland when the troubles were really bad, as well as Kosovo. He was also ex-Infantry and he had a lot of weapons skills so I felt that if he deployed then he might not be used in his current role, as an admin clerk, but that he would probably be used for other things. We both knew things were tough in Afghanistan. Rumours had spread like wildfire that his old unit, The Argyles, had had to use their bayonets for the first time in twenty-five years, something unheard of in modern warfare. I was terrified that if he went then he would end up being injured or worse.
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