by Harry Beaves
As the days went by I was still making little progress. I was becoming breathless and finding it more and more difficult to get upstairs. It was a nightmare. I would have breakfast with Barbara at 7.30 then she would go off to work at Hamworthy First School. I would be in the house on my own, able to do little more than read and hardly able to shuffle around, only able to get upstairs on my knees. Eventually the District Nurse became sufficiently concerned about me for Dr Watkins, the local GP, to visit me at home.
He listened to my heart and immediately arranged for me to be admitted to Poole General Hospital. In Poole Dr Bruce diagnosed a pericardial effusion – fluid around the heart. This was explained in layman’s terms to me as follows: imagine the heart as a muscle contained in a skin sack called the pericardium. The wounds on my arteries from the operation had bled or wept and the fluid could not escape. As a result the fluid built up inside the pericardium and put more and more pressure on the heart.
The Royal Brompton agreed to take me back in and perform a second operation to drain off the fluid. I was weak and drowsy, but I remember being loaded into an ambulance from Poole at about 3.30am in an attempt to beat the London rush hour. We sped up the motorway with blue light flashing and slowed as we reached the suburbs. A discussion was going on in the front of the vehicle, then we stopped, the crew consulted the map (it was in the days before satnav) and we shunted round a three-point turn. A few minutes later there was more discussion. I knew the route quite well and, by now, was trying to hear just what was going on. Eventually I called and asked them where we were and was then able to give the crew directions on how to get to the hospital. I might have laughed if I didn’t think I was dying.
We arrived at 7.30 and I was told that as I was an emergency I would be fitted into the schedule that day when there was a space. That was fine except that, because I was pending an operation, I could have no food and as I was not certain to be operated on that day I was given no calming pre-med so I was almost crawling up the walls with anxiety.
I was operated on at the end of the afternoon. When I came round a drain had been put in below my ribs and a bottle on the floor contained 800mls of the offending liquid. As a beer drinker I recognised that as almost a pint and a half, so it was no wonder I had felt so ill. I quickly began to feel better and was soon asking if I could be transferred to Poole. Poole Hospital was happy to receive me so after about five days I looked forward to an ambulance trip home.
This time the ambulance and crew were provided by a civilian contractor. The two crewmen had close-cropped hair, tightly-tailored shirts, web belts with all manner of pouches containing emergency equipment, and, of course, dark glasses. They looked like the Provisional Wing of the London Ambulance Service and obviously thought a very great deal of themselves. Their vehicle was a basic looking transit conversion with a stretcher on one side and a fold-down seat inside each rear door. The smile might have returned to me, but I had forgotten quite how fragile I was and how much my still healing rib cage hurt. I was taken to the ambulance in a wheelchair and invited by the crew to sit in one of the upright seats inside the back door. Then we set off to the Royal Marsden Hospital where we picked up another patient for Poole who had been undergoing chemotherapy. He sat in the seat opposite. We stared at each other each in our own private agony as we shook through the streets of west London.
The pace that we were travelling meant that we two patients were being bounced and thrown about each time we turned, slowed or braked. The jolting was really hurting my very sore chest and I began to worry that it might do some damage. Meanwhile, in the front, the ‘Provisional Wing’ chatted happily about motorway pile-ups and screaming victims that they had treated, seemingly oblivious to our discomfort. Eventually I had enough and shouted for them to stop. They pulled over and I explained my problem and asked if I could lie down. They were full of apologies and gently strapped me on to the stretcher, a far less painful way to travel, and we set off again driving slowly and cautiously for almost a mile. Meanwhile my chemo friend was filling his third sick bag.
The care and comfort of Poole Hospital was altogether better than the Brompton and, of course, I was pleased to see my family more regularly. My recovery was progressing rapidly and I was itching to go home and start doing things. I was bored and used to do laps round the ward to try to get back to walking again.
Throughout all of this time 148 Battery and the MO in Poole only had a casual knowledge of my welfare through news from friends and family. I was delighted, one day, to be visited by a couple of lads from the Battery. True to form, they spent a hilarious afternoon yarning and making fun of my condition, which was just brilliant, and when they left they gave me an entry form for the Poole Half Marathon in August. To this day I am not sure whether they were serious or not.
Once the fluid had been drained from around my heart my improvement was dramatic, but, unlike the Brompton, which seemed keen to be rid of patients as soon as possible, Poole Hospital was not going to let me go until they were sure I was strong enough. Once home, I was eager to become active again. I waited impatiently to be told I could start doing more strenuous things and when I was told I could jog again I felt I was almost back to normal. I was on the most amazing high, able to do the things that I enjoyed, so much so that I was running and cycling at every opportunity.
It was three months before I was considered fit enough to go back to work. There was an element of farce about getting passed fit again. Because I was a soldier serving with Commando Forces, from diagnosis to post-operative I had gone through the naval medical system.
The period of my convalescence had overlapped the time at which I was due to be posted, so there was no new job in the pipeline and the postings branch had to consider my capabilities carefully. I was returning to the Army system, so, before this could be done, I had to be medically graded again by the Army’s Senior Cardiologist, Lt Col Neil Ineson. To my amazement the Army and Navy seemed to have different attitudes to and treatment of cardiac patients and I found myself being questioned as to why I had been treated the way I had. Furthermore, the Navy had given me to understand that after cardiac surgery my military service was over or at best seriously limited, while the Army seemed to think patients like me could serve anywhere except on operations. I found the confusion very unsettling.
The BHF London to Brighton Cycle Ride. Picture BHF
Even though my military employment was restricted I could have gone back to the Battery and usefully pottered around there as I settled back into a working routine, but instead I was sent to the Artillery Branch at HQ Land at Wilton, a forty-minute drive from my home. I was working with old friends and was given an office with a computer (which I had no idea how to use), but I wasn’t told what my job was nor was I given anything to do. At the end of my first day I was angry and upset. I felt fitter and stronger than I had been for years and just raring to go. I drove home and straight away put on my trainers and drove out and ran as hard as I could for several miles round Badbury Rings in an angry attempt to dispel my frustration.
Each lunchtime I would pound the lanes around Wilton and I resumed my involvement with Wimborne Veterans Rugby XV. So it went on for week after week. I would drive to Wilton, greet everyone, go into my office and wait for something to do. Having previously given technological advances ‘Nelson’s eye’ I could no longer ignore them so I spent much of the time usefully teaching myself how to use the word processor.
The situation in the former Yugoslavia had been steadily deteriorating until the Dayton Agreement was signed on 14th December 1995. In the run-up to Christmas our HQ was given the complex task of organising the Artillery element of the NATO Implementation Force. Suddenly there was a job for me as someone was needed to man the Artillery Operations desk in the command centre deep in the bowels of HQ Land, so I was sent to sit in front of a different computer with a different telephone and a phone list for Kosovo. I waited… and waited… and still nothing happened. Things were little different
from before, but to add insult to injury the desk had to be manned until the operation was over (several years). For me, this meant working right through Christmas with only Christmas Day free. I was mighty unhappy.
During my time at Wilton the postings branch had been looking for my next real posting which had to be given careful consideration as my recent medical history limited the things I could do. It was recognised that I should not be asked to undertake the stress of moving house and I had been hoping that I could be found a place among the hundreds of staff at RSA Larkhill, which was a relatively easy commute and, in my opinion, where there were a number of ‘cushy’ jobs that would suit my medical condition. Instead I was offered a job in the MoD in the Director of Personal Services (DPS) department. At the time the office was in London, but in the spring it would be moving down to Upavon, which was an hour’s commuting distance from my home.
In the New Year I began my new job with DPS. I took a flat near Paddington and travelled up by train on Monday morning and came home on Friday afternoon. My job title was SO2 PS4, by which I was responsible for the conditions of service of the married soldier and his family, related in many ways to the job I had done in Germany. The office was in Northumberland Avenue in a building designed originally as a hotel and requisitioned by the Army during the Second World War. It was a gloomy rabbit warren of magnolia corridors with identical offices, each with identical grey steel furniture. We were on the sixth floor and, seeking fresh air one day, I noticed that there were locks on all the windows. Locks on the windows, on the sixth floor? I began to think it was designed to keep us in and stop us departing like lemmings, such was the fun and jollity of the job.
To make up for my ‘short’ Mondays and Fridays, I would be in the office each day for 8.30, have a sandwich at my desk at lunchtime and leave the office around 7pm. I would find somewhere to eat on the way home, but there was never any reason to rush back to the flat. I hated the lonely, soulless existence which was made worse by the job I was doing. Advances in technology had come on in leaps and bounds since my staff job in Germany; in particular, much communication was done electronically, something at which I was hardly adept. Letters produced through the typing pool and sent out by mail built in a time lag that gave you a chance to gather your thoughts more carefully. I found myself receiving messages asking for opinions by email by close of play the same day. The result was often a poorly considered response to a question that had not been adequately circulated.
When we moved to Upavon things improved a little, in as much as I could commute daily, but I still left home at 7.15 and was rarely back before 7pm. Welfare always generates strong feelings and I found myself dealing with some very hot topics, things like the welfare package for troops in Kosovo which included entitlement to R and R leave and flights, post-tour leave, free phone calls, services broadcasting, NAAFI services, Christmas mail and charitable gifts. These were all the sort of things which if handled indelicately could quickly make the front page of the Sun.
I understood the job and was able do what was required, but there was never enough time to do things properly and I worked long and hard to achieve results that rarely satisfied me. Several months in I was exhausted and thought that I was suffering angina pains again, so I went to see the MO in Upavon. I collapsed when he was taking blood and he sent me home to rest. My job would have been demanding for most people and was not at all an easy or suitable task for a recovering cardiac patient. After two weeks I was asked if I was happy to continue in the job. I was very worried about my health and said ‘No’. Having been hugely buoyed with confidence after my successful operation my world came crashing down.
The postings branch cast around for another ‘safe’ posting for me and chose to send me back to Woolwich, a place I had disliked intensely when I had previously served there.
Chapter 34
The End of the Army
The manner of my departure from Upavon and PS4 meant a fundamental reappraisal of my military future. There were still about seven years left before my fifty-fifth birthday when I would have to leave the Army. I had realised some time ago that any thoughts of returning to Tywyn and involvement with adventurous training were out of the question. In theory I could have been posted there as Commandant and I would not have any direct responsibilities for students on the hill. But I knew that if I was in that post I would be in the hills and on the rock with the courses whenever I could, that was my style and the way in which centres like that should be led. My heart problems were solved, but in practice I was still officially a heart patient and at greater risk than others. Under those circumstances it would have been wrong to put myself in danger deliberately by involving myself directly in high-risk activities. I had resigned myself to more mundane jobs, but felt that there were still plenty of opportunities for me to enjoy military life. Unfortunately, working in Woolwich was very unlikely to be one of them.
I got off the train and trudged up to the RA Barracks, finding Woolwich every bit as seedy and rundown as I had remembered it. I was commuting on Monday and Friday again and living during the week in the same Mess accommodation that I had used at the end of my bachelor days. I was on the staff of the Regimental Headquarters of the Royal Artillery which was commanded by Colonel Barrie Fairman, an old friend. My job involved the customs, traditions and heritage of the Royal Artillery, a role about as diametrically opposite to the things that I had always enjoyed in the Army as was possible. Among other things, I was responsible for organising formal dinners which I had always hated, but the supreme irony was that, having never cared too much what I was wearing by way of uniform, I found myself responsible for reviewing and redrafting RA Dress Regulations!
Early in my time I was referred for counselling by Lt Col Jenkins, an Army psychiatrist, over the ‘adjustment’ problems that I was experiencing after my heart operation. I maintained these visits roughly monthly throughout my stay in Woolwich. They were a handrail, but I never felt they did much good. I remember regularly being told to make lists of things to do and some of the relaxation exercises were very helpful, but at no stage was I asked about my previous military experiences and I would probably have welcomed the chance to talk about my time in Ireland. The simple truth was that my health was never going to improve when I was away from home and I found living in the RA Mess a soulless experience with very few kindred spirits to lighten the days. My youngest son, Philip, at that time was still at boarding school and, with fees to pay, I still needed the security of my military salary. In any case, with my cardiac history the stress of job-seeking would probably have been as great as the stress of enduring my time at Woolwich, so I soldiered on.
After two years in Woolwich it was time to move to what would be my final posting, as I was approaching my fifty-fifth birthday. It was usual for a final posting to be an easy job close to home to give opportunities to start looking for employment and begin the transition to civilian life. I was disillusioned by the unsuitable postings that had been conjured up for me since my heart operation and my final posting only served to reinforce this sense of dissatisfaction and abandonment. I was posted to a Cadet Training Team (CTT) at Worthy Down, near Winchester.
The Cadet Training Team consisted of an officer (me) and seven SNCOs whose task was to provide training and assistance to Combined Cadet Force (CCF) units in private schools and to Army Cadet Force (ACF) units. Each of the SNCOs had responsibility for working with six cadet units. Worthy Down was an hour and ten minutes’ daily commute from my home along the M3. The working day started at 0830 and we spent the morning planning and preparing the training, then those who were visiting Cadets that day would stand down at lunchtime and the afternoon was free. The instructors all lived in the Sgts Mess or locally in married quarters so they could relax at home or in their rooms. Living in Dorset, there was no time for me to escape from Worthy Down. The staff would then go off to their CCFs, usually after school from 4 to 6pm or ACFs from 7 to 9.30pm. In addition the Cadet Training Team h
elped with a large number of weekend exercises and training camps.
My responsibility was to liaise with the ACF/CCF Detachment Commanders and ensure that appropriate training was being delivered in a satisfactory manner, so I had to visit them at a time when my staff were teaching. I would leave home at 7.15am for the morning’s work, mooch around and kill time in the afternoon then visit a Cadet Force unit in the late afternoon or evening. That meant that I was lucky if I was home by 7pm from a CCF and 10pm from the ACF. Journey time was made worse by the fact that, although the office was at Winchester, some of the cadet detachments were as far north as Reading, which was a two-hour drive to our home in Dorset.
There was little that interested me in the job and I was finding the long hours and commuting a strain. I contacted lt Col Jenkins at Woolwich, who had told me to go back to him if I had a recurrence of my problems. I was again concerned about cardiac condition and this time Lt Col Jenkins suggested that I should be medically discharged from the Army. I was worried about my health, I hated the job I was doing and I found no kindred spirits at that posting. Above all, I felt I had been badly let down by my regimental postings branch, so I agreed for him to set the wheels in motion. After thirty-five years of fun-filled and immensely satisfying military life it was not at all the way I would have wanted to depart and I was extremely disillusioned and disappointed.
My discharge date was set for several months ahead. The Army is very generous in its treatment of those completing their service and I was entitled to leave, resettlement advice and a financial grant towards resettlement training. The most important question was, after thirty years’ service, straight from school, what would I do? In years gone by I would have liked to have gone into civilian outdoor education, building on the knowledge and experience that I had gained at the JSMTCs, but that was out of the question for the reason I had abandoned my hopes of finishing my time at Tywyn. Most retiring Army officers go into management or administration as a second career; alternatively I might go in to teaching. All of these professions involve working with people, but people let you down, and as a cardiac patient a high priority for me was to minimise the stress in my life.