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

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СКАЧАТЬ seven years earlier, but had been given the all-clear. In April she found a lump, and a year later, after a lot of chemo, she died. My dad had died nine years earlier, so it was a very tough time. While she was ill she wanted me with her and she didn’t want to be in hospital. So for the first months of our married life Dave was in our married quarters and I was living with my mum. Dave was wonderful with Mum, and he supported me through a really bad time. Mum loved him like a son – and she always took his side in everything.

      I’m so glad she had the pleasure of seeing me married. We arranged the wedding quite quickly, because we thought Dave might be deployed to Sierra Leone. We’d already experienced a long-distance relationship when we were engaged, when he was based for a time in Chivenor and I was still in Portsmouth, and we didn’t want to do that again. It was a big wedding, with a coachload of Dave’s family from Scotland.

      I loved our first quarters, a lovely little flat. Whenever I go back to Gosport I rent one from the navy – you can rent them cheaply, and it’s really nostalgic, like going back to our first home. There were other navy wives living around, but they kept themselves to themselves. I didn’t have time to socialise because I was looking after Mum and going to work, and because it’s my home town I had my own friends.

      After Mum died I wanted to start a family, but Dave said we should wait a bit, as he felt I was just trying to replace her. He was right: I needed to grieve. It wasn’t the right time.

      When Dave was posted to Gibraltar I jumped at the chance to go with him. They were the best three years of my life. I’d lived there when I was little, when my dad was posted there, but I couldn’t really remember it. My brother, who is four years older than me, came out to visit and we recreated a photo taken when I was about three outside the flat we’d lived in as children.

      It was my first real taste of being a military wife, away from all my old friends. I had a job, in a building society, but our social life was with the other military people. Because we had no children we tended to mix with single people: Dave would cover the shifts of girls in the hospital so that I could go out with them. It was all fantastic.

      There was one big worry: we’d started trying to have a baby when we moved to Gibraltar, and it wasn’t happening. The navy flew us back for tests in London, and we were told it was ‘unexplained infertility’.

      On the one hand that feels quite good: there’s no obvious reason, so there’s still some hope. On the other hand, if there was a reason, they might be able to do something. I needed a small gynaecological operation, but there was an 18-month waiting list and we knew we would be back in the UK by then. So we stopped worrying and relaxed.

      When we came back we moved to this house in Chivenor, where we’ve lived for more than five years. It wasn’t easy, as life on a patch like this is all about children and we didn’t have any. I kept myself to myself and looked for work, eventually finding a civil service job on camp. It was a casual job, covering the time the army lads from Chivenor were in Afghan, and as Dave was going too it was good for me to be busy.

      I was doing the paperwork for the sick and injured who came back to the UK, and I made it more of a job than it was, going with the families up to the hospital at Selly Oak, sorting out any problems they had. It felt good to be helping them out. I also got involved in organising family events at Chivenor for the families of those who were away.

      Dave had been away before, to Iraq, but then he had stayed on a ship. This time, in Afghanistan, he was on the front line, and I didn’t hear from him for six or seven weeks. Even after that, he was in an FOB with very bad comms. But he knew he didn’t have to worry about me: I’ve always been strong and independent.

      When he phones, he doesn’t usually tell me too much about what is happening out there; he just wants the news from home. He obviously can’t say too much about what they’re doing. But once he was really upset, and he cried. He had been dealing with a six-month-old baby girl, and it really got to him. The little girl had been badly burned, and Dave ran with her in his arms to the helicopter, which took her to the hospital at Bastion. He felt attached to her, and he was angry about what was happening out there. I just listened. That’s all you can do. He heard later that she was OK, and that the hospital had saved her life and she had hardly any scars. That seems to makes the job worthwhile, knowing the good they are doing for civilians.

      When he was home for R & R I took time off work, but he was thinking about what was happening out there. He’d seen some hellish things. R & R mucks up everything. It’s always delayed, so you can’t bank on it, and as soon as they get back they’re off again. My idea would be to send the men to Cyprus for R & R, so that they get some rest and a break, and give us families cheap fares to go out there and join them. Then it’s a holiday for everyone, in different surroundings, with no pressure for him to have to try to slot in back home, and children would not be so upset.

      When Dave got back at the end of the tour he said, ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

      My mind went into overdrive. I thought: How can you possibly be having an affair, in Afghanistan?

      But then he said, ‘I got shot.’

      Three weeks before they came back, he had been shot and he hadn’t told me because he did not want to worry me. Luckily it was just a flesh wound. He was extremely lucky. They were on foot patrol and were ambushed, and he didn’t hide fast enough. So it wasn’t an affair, just a bullet! But I realise how lucky he was: it could have been far worse.

      Dave doesn’t tell me much about what he saw and did when he’s on tour, and I respect that. He’s got three mates and they come round and sit in the garden talking together; they are therapy for each other. I never press him to talk: it’s not his way of dealing with it. If he wants to tell me, I’m here to listen, but I think it’s better for him to go through it with others who were out there.

      While he was away I had the op I needed. I had to ask my brother to come down and look after me. I was put on a fertility drug. Five months after Dave came back I went, without him, to Gibraltar to see my friends there, and because my period was late I didn’t drink, even though it was a big national celebration day. My friends realised what was happening, and they were all trying to persuade me to do a pregnancy test. In the end I did, in the loo in a café. I didn’t believe it: I ended up doing five tests.

      It was nice for me to ring Dave with some news, instead of the other way round. My temporary job was over when the lads came back, and we’d waited so long for this pregnancy that we didn’t want to take any chances, so I stayed at home. By this time I’d met some other wives from the patch, and I met other women at antenatal classes.

      By the time Calum was born in May 2010 Dave was gearing up for another tour in Afghan. He was sent away on a course when Calum was five weeks old, and I had nine solid hours daily of Calum screaming with colic, which was hellish. Calum was eight months old when Dave – who is now a petty officer medical assistant – went, but I wasn’t as lonely when he was away, because this time we had the choir.

Kelly Leonard

      I was good at sport at school, and captain of just about every team, so when I was trying to work out what I wanted to do for a career someone suggested becoming a PTI in the RAF. A careers officer came to the school and I fell in love with the idea, especially after doing work experience with the instructors at RAF St Athans.

      That became my goal, and when I was 20 I signed on the dotted line. I loved every minute of it. I went to RAF Halton for basic training, and then to RAF Cosford for ‘trade training’ to become a PTI. I then went to a base in Somerset, RAF Locking, where our main СКАЧАТЬ