It’s great when Phil comes home, but it’s weird readjusting to him being back in the house. I’m so used to doing my own thing I once forgot that he was here. I got the kids organised to go to the park with the dog, locked the door, and then two minutes later he was running after me:
‘Chelle, where you going?’
‘Christ, I’d forgotten you were here.’
We laugh about it now, but I was so used to running my own life without thought of him that I’d completely forgotten he was back.
I don’t start counting down with the kids until about two weeks before he’s due back. I don’t want them to spend the whole tour focusing on his return. Then, when it’s close, we start making the banners and the ‘welcome home’ cards.
Coming home is a tricky time, as any military wife will tell you. He’s got to get used to it, and so have we. He won’t tell the kids off, because he’s missed them so much, so I’m always the baddie. We’re better at doing this readjustment bit than we used to be. We used to have right barneys when he got back, because he’d do things I was used to doing.
I’m fiery and strong-willed, so I would say, ‘I’m not some little woman. I’m quite capable of doing this.’
He’d say, ‘Well, what do you want me here for?’
Then at other times I’d be thinking: You’re here, you should be doing this.
It’s a balance, and you get better at finding it, and knowing when to back off. When he comes home he’s tired and wants to stay at home – after all, he hasn’t seen the place for six or seven months. But I’m fed up with the house, and I want to get out and do things with the kids, have some fun. I know I try to cram too much in, but he’s away such a lot I need to make the most of it.
Before he went Afghan last time he started building a beautiful walk-in wardrobe in our bedroom. It’s absolutely gorgeous. But while he was away I was left with a lot of mess, and the back garden was full of rubbish. He loves DIY and he hates it if I pay someone else to do something, but I really resent it if the only time we have together he is working on the house.
I feel I spend my whole life on a pair of scales, trying to balance what’s right for him, right for the children and right for me.
If anyone ought to have been prepared for life as a military wife, it’s me. I was in the army myself; I took my career seriously and rose to be a sergeant. But it’s still different being a wife.
I joined up when I was 27, after a career working for Boots. I felt my life was at a crossroads. I’d had a seven-year relationship that had ended, and I wanted a challenge. I went to an army recruiting office near my family home in Snowdonia to make enquiries, just on impulse. Next thing, I was in.
After basic training I went to Germany in the Adjutant General’s Corps, which looks after personnel and admin for the army. I was on my own in a strange country, so I had to pull my confidence out of the hat. You can’t be shy and hide away. So from then on I was ‘the crazy Welsh woman’. The scary moment was when I was told after six months that I was going to Kosovo, as a military clerk looking after 110 men. We were thin on the ground and I had to do other duties, like being on guard, carrying a rifle. I couldn’t believe that a year earlier I was serving in Boots …
It was after about two and a half years that I met George, who is in the Royal Engineers, in the NAAFI bar at Osnabruck, and we quickly became close. Our first separation was when George deployed to Bosnia, which was heart-wrenching. Saying goodbye was weird, even though I was in the military myself. He’s my soulmate, and I think we both knew that from the beginning.
But we had to get used to separations very quickly, because a couple of weeks later I went back to Kosovo. We were both in the Balkans, but the only way we could speak to each other was to ring the UK and then get put through. It was difficult and we were lucky if we managed to speak once a week, but we could write blueys.
When I got back to Germany I was really ill. I was diagnosed with endometriosis, and I needed treatment. A German doctor told me rather brutally that I would never have children. It was a terrible blow.
George had been married before but he had no children. We knew we wanted to be together, but our future looked really weird without children, and it was a massive disappointment for both of us. It drew us very close together, especially as we were so far away from our families. We only had each other, and we decided to concentrate on our army careers.
Of course, after that news, we didn’t take any precautions. When we were both due to deploy to Oman, we were sent along to the medical centre for the jabs we needed. The medics did a pregnancy test because one of the injections affects an unborn foetus. I nearly fell on the floor when they told me I was pregnant. George was outside in a minibus with some of the others who were deploying. One of the staff brought him in and we had a crazy moment. We couldn’t tell anybody, because it was very early days, so we couldn’t show any emotion until we were on our own.
George was elated: it was a moment he didn’t think he would ever see. We’d settled in our minds that it would just be the two of us, two single soldiers, far away from home. We’d made our little life round that. We were so thrilled.
George went to Oman, returning two weeks before Georgina was born, which was lucky for him, as he missed all the pregnancy hormones. I didn’t give up work; I was even riding my motorbike until I was six months pregnant. It was hard being on my own so far from everyone, but if you are an army lady you just get on with it. My dad drove out to Germany to take me back to Wales for the birth, because he said he wasn’t having a grandchild born in Germany.
We got married five weeks after Georgina was born. I’d been trying to arrange the wedding from Germany, but it was complicated, with George’s family in Glasgow and mine in Wales, him in Oman and me in Germany. But we needed to get married so that I could get a decent-sized married quarter.
After maternity leave I asked for a posting near my family in North Wales, because my dad had been diagnosed with cancer. I went to Chester, which was as near as they could get me. George was out in Afghanistan and that was the most stressful time of my life, being a single mum with a tiny baby, my dad dying and George in Afghanistan. Also, I didn’t realise it, but during George’s R & R I’d got pregnant again. As I’d never had a normal menstrual cycle I didn’t notice anything, and I only put on half a stone, so again it was a lovely surprise. The sad thing is my dad died three weeks before Isla was born.
We moved to Kent, which was the only posting we could get together, and after a year’s maternity leave I went back to work. Then we moved to Wiltshire, for George to be based at Tidworth, while I had a post at Bulford.
After paying nursery costs I had £200 left from my wages every month. It was crazy, but I still loved my job. It was hard to be away from the children, but they were well looked after, and it was good for them to mix with other children. We were both sergeants by this time, but I always tell him I’m the boss at home.
It’s a strange life, moving from home to home all the time, and having to make friends wherever you go. It’s made me wary of making really good friends, because the minute you get close, they move somewhere else, or you do. You make lots of acquaintances, and occasionally some real friends, but then you face having to say goodbye all the time.
I left the army after 11 years, after Georgina, who was nearly six, said to me, ‘Why aren’t you taking me to school like the other mummies?’ George was away in Afghanistan, and I realised how hard it was for her, now that she was a bit older, to have her daddy away and her mummy working full time. I was in a job where I dealt with discharge papers, so I filled out my own paperwork. I didn’t tell George immediately, because he was in the thick of it, on the front line, and I didn’t want to distract him. But he was really happy when I did tell him. He was surprised I hadn’t done it sooner.
That was a strange