If at first you don’t succeed...

Staying power and focus are admirable qualities. Unfortunately in my working life and housework I don’t see myself as having either trait in vast quantities, but when it comes to my children I produce a will of iron from somewhere deep inside me and refuse to take no for an answer. I have been likened to a dog with a bone, or even less (?) flatteringly an Exocet, (for those who don’t know this was an anti aircraft missile used extensively in the Falklands war. It could be launched from almost anywhere and lock onto its target regardless of anything in its way).

I suppose I would have felt better if I was likened to a lioness protecting her cubs. This, in my mind is far more noble and positive...and then I think of the documentary footage of a lioness bringing down a tiny deer or a strayed baby wildebeest and the whole thing becomes slightly confused and a tad awkward, but I digress...

 I have been a single mum since the children were very small. I have tried, with varying degrees of success, to put them on the right path; a path that would see them safe and happy. So when Ash told me aged 15 that he wanted to join the Army it was the determination in his eyes and his resolute and unshakeable faith that this was his path in life which made me feel that I had a responsibility to make it happen.

It wasn’t easy, I was wary about my baby boy joining up. He seemed too young and yet there was a knowingness about him, he was so sure, and through that I became sure. There were interviews and paperwork, tests and more tests, mostly involving me taking Ash to the Army Recruitment Centre in Blackheath and waiting. There was a lot of waiting. 

The path through the recruitment stage was long and arduous and I learned that only 1 out of every 10 young men who walk through the Army Recruitment Centres doors actually make it to basic training.

The morning the letter arrived Ash was at school, so I opened the letter and read that he had been turned down on medical reasons. I stared at the letter and reread its contents. It was because he had had asthma. Thoughts raced through my head and I instantly remember the bad attacks Ash had when he was small, being hospitalised once when I will never forget his tear stained faced begging me not to leave him...but that was years ago and he hadn’t had an asthma attack since he was about 6 and had been off the inhalers now for years. I scratched my head and read the letter again....my eyes darted over the page until I saw the words “Appeal against the decision”, so there was hope.

I found myself checking the clock at regular intervals during the day, waiting to hear the key in the lock and Ash to come home from school. He sat down as I told him the news. His eyes got wider and wider and then started to glisten,

“But Mum” he said “What do I do? What do I do now? It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

And I looked at him, this young man with eyes the colour of conkers, and I knew that I had to make this happen. I had no choice because I was his Mum and that my job, regardless of how I felt, because it was about him, and not about me.

So I wrote the letter, and fought the decision. After a few weeks the decision was over turned and Ash was cleared to go to basic training and to join up. He was going into Army.

It was on August 28th 2007 in the Army Recruitment Centre in Blackheath, in front of Major M Norris, (a man you had joined as a 16 year old raw recruit), that Ash swore his allegiance to the Queen, I cried, he was not just mine anymore. He was 16 years old and agreeing to serve, to defend, and potentially lay down his life in order to protect others.

“ I Ashley Thomas Wiles swear by almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Her heirs and successors and that I will as in duty bound honestly and faithfully defend Her Majesty, Her heirs and successors in Person, Crown and dignity against all enemies and will observe and obey all orders of Her Majesty, Her heirs and successors and of the Generals and Officers set over me."

 I was humbled and immensely proud of this young warrior, my son. And through the tears I laughed. A silent inward laugh as he pronounced the words Heirs as Hairs, and it made me want to hug him as I realised just how young, how vulnerable and how very unworldly he actually was.

It was a few years later that I was to remember that it was my decision to send the appeal letter and to fight for his right to join up. It was my actions that would eventually result in my son, my baby boy, going to Afghanistan and to war...

Madness is inevitable

“I suppose madness is an inevitable outcome...” I overheard these words as I stood in the checkout queue in the supermarket. The woman in front of me was talking into her mobile. I immediately became interested, and stepped closer to her.

An outcome to what?  Why was madness inevitable? Who was she talking about? I strained to catch the rest of the conversation, but it was her turn to be served and so she moved away to the bagging end of the counter. I took a couple of steps closer but she caught my eye, flashed me a look as if to say “Get back to the shopping divider” and said something quietly into her phone whilst holding her steely gaze locked into my eyes. I shifted slightly uncomfortably and rummaged around in my bag looking for an imaginary something. I considered the words and realised that she may well have been discussing me, not now of course, but me, last year.

My youngest son is currently serving in the British Army, 207 Signal Squadron and went out to Afghanistan last year aged 20 on a 7 month tour. During that time I wrote a diary, trying to purge the thoughts I was feeling. I took the ‘better out than in’ approach. It was a peculiar time for me.

 I existed.

Every waking moment was consumed by Ash in Afghanistan. I longed for his call. I scoured the internet to read anything and everything about Nahr e Saraj, the area where he was based. I became obsessed, focused, determined and slightly batty. But I still had to go to work, keep the house and be here for my other two children. I had to function on the outside, and for all intent and purpose I was under the impression that I held up fairly well.

Well that’s if you don’t count the meltdown in Bromley High Street when I missed a call from him after an 11 day silence, or confusing the telephone call from my hairdresser with somebody from the Army, and of course the time when...hmmm, yes well perhaps, with hindsight, there were a few wobbles on the way, and perhaps madness was inevitable, even though it was only a temporary state of affairs. Perhaps the supermarket call was referring to another mum whose boy has gone to war. Perhaps madness is the tightrope we walk when our boys and girls get deployed.

I don’t come from a Military family, so when Ash aged 4 said he wanted to join the Army I just thought it was a typical 4 year old, lost in play, dressing up in tiny camouflage trousers and toting a plastic gun. Even when he was 13 and joined the Army Cadets I thought it was a good thing. It would keep him off the streets, out of trouble and teach him valuable life lessons.

As a single working Mum I was always slightly concerned about the absence of a Father figure in his life and welcomed his involvement with the Cadets, going away with them of their expeditions tromping through god knows where in the middle of the night reading maps and getting lost.  He loved it all, sleeping in tents and marching and was very proud of his uniform. Even when he became more serious about his career and told me at aged 15 that he wanted to join the Army, I didn’t really have alarm bells ringing. I was more concerned that he would be leaving school too early with just average GCSEs. He told me that he didn’t want to stay on and take his A-levels, that school wasn’t for him and that he didn’t want to go to College or University.

His one and only desire was to join the Army. I remember his eyes: big, brown, determined, focused. He looked at me with an unwavering stare. His mind was made up, and such was his determination I was slightly caught on the hop. Ash had always been so laid back, so calm and yet here was this young man in front of me, his jaw set, his lips pursed, knowing at 15 years old what he was going to do.

If I had realised that he would go to Afghanistan at that point I think I would have stuck him in a bag and locked him in the cupboard under the stairs. But hindsight is a wonderful thing!

Although there were wars in Iraq and Afghanistan going on at the time, and had been for some time, I didn’t connect the dots. Had I been wearing my sensible head then I’m sure it would have put the two together. Clearly though I wasn’t, but I’m still not too sure why I gave it such scant regard.  I honestly do not remember this conundrum ever gracing my thought process. I am a little ashamed of this fact as it now seems slightly irresponsible that as I was the one who had to sign the consent forms, it was my signature that would send him to war...
Cathy