Wherever You Are: The Military Wives: Our true stories of heartbreak, hope and love. The Wives Military

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      While we were at the hospital with Joseph, who was very ill and not conscious, a padre turned up, wearing a dog collar. I freaked when I first saw him, but he’d heard that we needed support and he’d come to see if there was anything he could do. I’m not religious, but he asked if we would like to pray and I thought: What have I got to lose? The next day Joseph opened his eyes and started to get better.

      Kenny went back to Afghanistan in 2010, and that was a horrific tour. There were so many casualties to the unit: it lost 14 men. This time there was a long build-up to him going, and because he had been in Scotland, back to Chivenor and then on to Taunton, all in around two years, we had had very little time together. Lots of the wives I knew at Chivenor had moved on, which is one of the problems all military wives have. I didn’t know anyone well enough to just pop round and say, ‘I’m having a rubbish day.’

      I struggled with pre-deployment. It’s really hard – almost as hard as when they are actually out there. They’re away a lot for training, and then they are back but they’re not with us at all. They detach from the family; they become almost robotic. They become what they are: marines, soldiers, airmen, whatever their job is. The job becomes them, and we’re somewhere on the sidelines. They have to get into that frame of mind but it creates huge tensions. It’s as if you are separated for a whole year, although for the first six months they are technically here, and at least you know they are safe. You understand what the training is doing and you support it. But it isn’t easy.

      The pre-op was bad. Sometimes, he’d arrive here late Friday and have to leave by Sunday lunchtime. The children didn’t feel they had much time with him, and neither did I. In our marriage we have spent so much time apart, but it has made us stronger: when we are together we just want to sit together on the sofa cuddling.

      There were only two Royal Marines who deployed from this estate on that tour, including Kenny, which made it hard, as all the welfare was centred on Taunton. I made the effort to take the children there for the social things like barbecues and families’ days that were organised, because it helped them to be with other children who had their fathers away.

      Kenny was based at Kajaki, a village in the south famous for the Kajaki dam, which powers hydroelectricity for a lot of the country. It used to be a very dangerous area, but by the time he went there it was safer; plus the British were pulling out and handing over to the US Marines. This time the kids were old enough to understand more about the war, and therefore to be worried. But knowing that Kenny was going to be near the lake made by the dam helped me reassure them. We bought him a fishing rod before he went and we looked at pictures of the lake on the Internet, finding out about edible fish. I focused on that for them, building up a picture of Dad fishing in the lake rather than Dad on patrol with a gun, or Dad dealing with people who had been hurt.

      There was a bad moment when he phoned to say he was in hospital at Camp Bastion, but thankfully he just had vomiting and diarrhoea. We look back and giggle about it, but the moment you get that phone call, everything stops.

      James was nine when Kenny was in Afghanistan the last time, just at the age where he’d become obsessed with his father’s job. It’s a boy thing, I suppose. He bombards me with questions. He’s very aware of what’s happening. I didn’t tell the children that Kenny was going out with front-line patrols, but it’s very hard to protect them from the media all the time.

      R & R is always tricky. The way I deal with it is to make sure we go away. For Kenny’s last R & R I booked us all into a beautiful hotel near Oxford. We picked him up at Brize and drove straight there. I wanted the kids to have the experience of seeing him come through the double doors at Brize. I warned the staff at the hotel that we’d be arriving quite late and he’d be in uniform: not everyone likes to see men in uniform, and I didn’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable. But they were great about it.

      At breakfast the next morning he was so jumpy. They had big metal lids over the hot food, and every time one banged he jumped. Again, we laugh about it now, but at the time I was reassuring him.

      When we went for a walk he was scanning the treeline, and he’d suddenly say: ‘What’s that?’

      ‘It’s a bird.’ Then he’d turn and look behind us.

      It made me on edge. I felt as though I was walking down a dark alley with someone behind me. There we were, in this beautiful place, but he wasn’t there. I was glad to have him physically home, but I didn’t really have him at all: he was still out there.

      I’m pleased he didn’t switch off, because he had to go back and it was better that he stayed in the zone, but it’s not easy living with it.

      During R & R there just isn’t time to cram in seeing all the people who want to see him. I just want to switch the phone off and keep him to myself, but you do have to think about how others feel.

      Coming home is also a tricky time. You know it should feel great, but there’s a big readjustment to make. It drives you crackers. When they are away you have to be very independent. I’m very self-sufficient, I can do DIY, I know more about how cars work than Kenny does. You can guarantee that as soon as he’s away, something’ll go wrong: the washing machine, the dishwasher, the car – all military wives agree it’s sod’s law. Then they are back and you have to learn to share again.

      To him, when he gets back, everything seems so cluttered, with the kids’ stuff everywhere; when they are away they live with a minimum number of possessions. Life with children is chaotic, completely the opposite of an ordered military life, and that takes him a while to get used to.

      Also, while he was away I’d shielded him from news about his mum, who had terminal cancer. She told me things she didn’t want Kenny to know while he was out there, and I phoned her regularly to support her. Not long after he got back he had to face the fact that the doctors were giving her only three months to live, although she survived six months after his return. It was terrible for him to come back from a tour and then face that.

Louise Baines

      I said I would never marry in, because I knew what being a military wife was like. I saw my mum do it for years because my dad was in the navy for 22 years. I worked as a steward at a barracks in Plymouth, where I grew up, so I saw plenty of navy blokes, and I swore I’d never go out with one.

      Then I joined up myself. I went into the RAF, working as a steward in an officers’ mess in Middlesex, where I served the Queen a cup of tea and met Princess Diana and Prince Charles. But I’d joined the RAF to see the world, and it just wasn’t happening. So after five years I left and started working on cruise ships, which I loved because I really did see the world. Then I worked as a bar manager and then an assistant manager in smart hotels in the home counties.

      I went back to Plymouth to keep my mum company. She and my dad had split up, my brother was working abroad and my grandparents had died, so I felt my mum needed me around. I took an admin job but also took on a couple of shifts a week behind a bar, just to meet people.

      Clayton came in with some mates. He said, ‘My name’s Charlie’ – which is his nickname – ‘and I’m a submariner. I’ve travelled the world.’

      I just said, ‘Yeah, and I’ve done a bit of travelling.’ I don’t think he believed me. He thought I was just a girl in a pub who’d had a couple of holidays in Spain.

      Despite everything I’d said about men in uniforms, it was only a few months before we moved in together. I insisted on a two-bedroom flat so that if it didn’t work out we could just be flatmates. We got engaged СКАЧАТЬ