Contents
WORDS WE USE
We use words and phrases that we pick up from our men – military terms and slang that you may not understand. Here’s an explanation of the ones in this book:
R & R Rest and recreation: the break, usually two weeks, the men get in order to come home in the middle of a long tour
SSAFA Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association: a charity that helps serving and former members of the armed forces, their families or dependents
I never expected to marry a soldier. I used to joke I wouldn’t marry anyone who had been married before, anyone in uniform or anyone who smoked. At least he’s given up smoking …
I met Hugo at St James’s Palace when some friends invited me to go for a drink there. I thought: How do you go for a drink at a palace? Then I said, ‘I’m not dressed for a palace.’ I’d just finished work, but they said I was fine. Hugo was doing ceremonial guard duty and was based there. It turned out girls could go for a drink before dinner, and my friends wanted me to meet him. I was 33 at the time, and I think I’d sort of stopped thinking I’d ever fall in love. But they say that when you stop looking, it happens.
My feelings for Hugo, who is a major in the Scots Guards, were really strong from the beginning, but I had to get my head round military life. He had only another couple of months of ceremonial duty and then he was travelling a lot, running training exercises in Asia, Africa, all over. It was a great job for him, and I was busy. I was working in advertising and marketing, and at the same time training as a psychotherapist, so the separation didn’t feel too bad.
After a year we got engaged and bought our own home, in Wiltshire. The day we moved in he was in Singapore, staying in some nice hotel, while I was lugging boxes: I should have realised that it was a sign of things to come, an introduction to what military wives do. It was a very happy time.
Before I knew Hugo he’d done three tours in Northern Ireland and he’d been in the first Gulf War. He’d left the army for a few years, working for a landmine clearance charity, and he’d been to Afghanistan and Angola with the job. But he’d missed the army: his mother always says that from the moment he could hold a pencil he was drawing pictures of soldiers. He’s from an army family, and they have lots of history with the Scots Guards. I love all the Guards’ traditions, and the passion soldiers have for their regiments, and although I said I wouldn’t marry a soldier, the first time I saw him in his red tunic and bearskin was very exciting.
Eighteen months after we married, Hugo went to Iraq. It was the first time since we’d been together that he’d been somewhere dangerous. After you find out six months before that they are going to deploy, life is never quite the same. It overshadows even the nicest days. Everything you think about and plan for the future is affected by it. Can we go to so-and-so’s wedding? Can we book a holiday? Everything is slightly in limbo, and the worry is there all the time. The minute we actually said goodbye I almost felt: Hooray, now I’m counting down to you coming back. I was very sad that he was going, but relieved that at last it was happening.
But the final day was incredibly sad. I dropped him at camp at 3 a.m. and then drove myself home, listening to James Blunt singing ‘You’re Beautiful’ with tears streaming down my face and thinking: This is probably not the best choice of music … I cried the whole way.
You try not to live by the phone, but it’s hard not to. Eventually some friends persuaded me to go to the pub one night.
While we were there someone said to me, ‘Your phone is ringing.’
I grabbed it, but the call had gone. I recognised the number, and I saw those terrible words ‘missed call’.
My friends said, ‘Call him back.’
They didn’t understand that I can’t do that.
They said, ‘That’s terrible. When will you hear from him again?’
My heart sank as I said, ‘I don’t know.’ It’s one of the most painful things.
But one thing we military wives do is write letters, and we get letters. That’s rare these days – who writes letters to their husband or wife? But we do, and you can say things in letters you might never say otherwise. You can express your true emotions. When he’s home, there are so many ordinary things to discuss and you don’t say the big things as you do in letters.
When they’re away, you have no choice but to carry on as normally as you can. Denial is a good defence sometimes. My way of coping is to think that while he’s away he has a protective bubble all around him; I picture him inside the bubble. Another military wife told me she did it, and I’ve passed it on to others. I shut down. I can’t think about his life out there: if I did I would go crazy. I’ve had moments of imagining the knock on the door, but then I feel guilty for even thinking it.
That six months went very slowly. I didn’t know any other wives, as I didn’t live on a patch. I didn’t know about welfare support. I didn’t know any different. I was living in a lovely village, and people were very supportive. But for them, after three or four months the novelty was over and they’d say things like, ‘Not long to go.’
But actually, the last bit is really hard. Wives all talk about five months into a tour being difficult, because you are at your most worn down and your reserves are depleted. Sunday afternoons are always very bad.
We don’t have children. It’s a great sadness, and we’re now going through the long process of adoption. I always say to other wives: ‘I don’t know how you do it with children.’ They say to me, ‘I don’t know how you do it without children. It’s the children who keep us going.’
Hugo had two chunks of R & R, one week each time. It was great to see him, but also disruptive. When he went back after the first R & R I didn’t hear from him for days. When he finally rang I couldn’t stop myself sobbing down the phone. It was so painful not having him here, because we’d had a good R & R. The weather had been fine, and we sat outside, drank wine, played cards and felt normal again. It made him going back so much worse – in some ways worse than him leaving at the beginning of the tour.
The return home is also so difficult. He’s exhausted, and he wants to collapse, not be bothered doing things. He wants to lie in all morning; I want to do things with him that we haven’t done for six months. It’s hard to manage the balance. And