The Loose Screw (9 page)

The night before we flew to Canada, however, I was arrested by the Dover Police on suspicion of criminal damage at the local nightclub, Images, and spent the night and the best part of the next day in the cells of Dover Police Station. The whole thing turned out to be a case of mistaken identity. At least that is what the CID officer in charge of the case had to conclude when my sergeant major viewed the CCTV footage from the club and vowed that it was not me who was seen throwing the dustbin through the window -honest! They released me into his care and allowed me to go to Canada albeit whilst on police bail and on the understanding that I would be on the first flight back in order to report back to the station.

Whilst in Canada, however, I received a letter saying that all charges had been dropped and my bail was therefore wiped clean. This meant that I was moved back to one of the last members of the battalion to fly back to the UK together with my mate Big 'Scouse' Barlow from the Mortar platoon. The only problem with this was that we didn't have much money left, so Scouse had the idea that we sell some kit.

The Canadian soldiers idolize the British and as a result love the British army kit. We made a small fortune in one afternoon selling our helmets for one hundred and forty dollars each and I even sold a worthless piece of camouflage face netting for sixty dollars after telling its new owner that it was only issued to members of the British SAS. It had to be done, it was survival of the fittest. Anyway, the Canadian army get paid far too much to worry about losing a few quid to a couple of British squaddie conmen.

I had been lucky enough to visit this magnificent country on two previous occasions, and had visited Quebec, Toronto and Calgary. This latest visit had been to Wainwright in Alberta to participate in a six-week battalion live-firing exercise. One of the highlights of this trip was getting to spend a week in the Jasper national park under canvas where we saw everything from bears to herds of moose effortlessly crossing white-water rivers. We even got the chance to go ice trekking up the Andromeda ice fields, a huge mountain of ice that remarkably retained its icy covering despite the intense heat of the Canadian summer. After that little expedition I realized how Scott of the Antarctic's team had found the ice so exhausting to walk over.

I do remember one funny incident whilst B Company and C Company shared the same three days R&R (rest and recuperation) in a rather nice hotel in Edmonton. I wandered into the Pizza Hut next to our hotel one night to find 'Ticking' Willie a bit worse for wear in the middle of a nasty row with three Pizza Hut employees. I didn't know what it was all about; all I cared about was that one of my mates looked in trouble and outnumbered. To cut a long story short, we sorted it and hastily made our way back to the hotel. The following morning little Graham 'Porty' Portafield asked me if he could have his England World Cup shirt back, which he had lent me to wear the night before. I obliged, of course, but as soon as Porty walked out of the hotel he got nicked for causing a disturbance the night before in the Pizza Hut. By the time they had realized they had the wrong man and had released him, I and Willie had taken the liberty of returning to the camp at Wainwright slightly earlier than planned and luckily heard no more about it.

Canada was the last big exercise we took part in, apart from a smaller version of Exercise Lionheart (a Territorial Army mobilization exercise) that we ran from Rhiendarlan Royal Air Force camp in Germany, before undertaking Northern Ireland training once again for our forthcoming two-year posting to Omagh in January 1991.

We quickly realized that Northern Ireland training had not changed a great deal over the previous year or so. The forthcoming tour was to be what they classed as a residential one, where we as a battalion would be based in Lissanelly Barracks in Omagh but could be deployed anywhere throughout Northern Ireland should the need arise. On such tours, unlike the previous one, the whole battalion including families would be going, so at least this time I would not have to put up with Garry's lovesick pining for Sarah or listen constantly to him playing his soppy love songs all day long.

Also for this tour I was to be part of a different four-man team. This time Mac the boxer, who I mentioned earlier, was our team commander, and the rest of us comprised myself (obviously), Freddie 'Mad Dog' Fryer and 'Rupert', a young trainee officer from the Army Pay Corps. None of us took to Rupert straight away, as infantrymen are naturally wary about relying on non-infantry 'soldiers', especially baby officer ones come to that. But, credit where credit's due, he performed very well in training and proved an asset to the team when we deployed on the ground in Northern Ireland. We arrived in the usual manner, but the camp at Omagh was a bit different to the last one we had stayed in.

This camp had everything within its heavily guarded perimeter -two pubs, a large NAAFI, and even a cinema The difference on this tour was that we were allowed out into certain areas of the town when off duty. I found the town of Omagh to be a lovely little town. The vast majority of people there showed us nothing but respect and kindness. I was devastated to hear of the atrocious and cowardly attack there some years later and I really felt for all involved as I thought I must have met some of those who were killed or injured.

The routine we followed was very much the same old routine we had followed in Fermanagh only this time we did slightly longer stints on each phase. Some of the areas we had to cover were slightly more dangerous than those we had been responsible for on the last tour, but the same basic principles applied.

I always laugh when I remember one incident concerning the disposal of our letters, which may have addresses of family back home on them. We were given a bollocking one day by the HQ company sergeant major, who obviously had nothing better to do than rummage through B Company's bins and had found a stack of letters that had not been placed in a burn bag. He took great pleasure in asserting his authority by ordering us to dispose of them in the proper manner. The trouble was we were running a bit late for a rendezvous with the helicopter to take us out on a seven-day patrol of the border. I told the lads that if they took my kit to the helipad and stalled the pilot I would burn the letters and dispose of them before catching them up. I found a small metal bin, lit the letters and made my way to the helipad whilst still carrying the smouldering bin. Then in the distance I saw the regimental police sergeant coming towards me. Not having the time or the patience to explain what I was doing carrying this burning bin around camp with me, I threw it into the skip outside the WRAC (Woman's Royal Army Corps) accommodation block.

I passed the police sergeant with a smile and hurried off to meet the rest of my patrol. Ten minutes later we had just got airborne above the camp when we heard some distant 'thumps' coming from the ground and seconds later the helicopter pilot announced that the camp was under a mortar attack and we had to circle the area to locate the terrorist team. The scene below us was bedlam. There were people running all over the place and diving for cover as the 'thumps' got louder and more frequent. We then noticed a large cloud of black smoke rising from the camp and feared the worst, but we had still been unable to locate the terrorist mortar-base plate position.

On closer inspection we were relieved to spot that it had only been a skip that appeared to have been hit and not an accommodation block. Then it dawned on me -like that terrible feeling you get when you slowly begin to remember the events of the night before -the skip that was on fire was the one outside the WRAC block. The burning bin I had disposed of therein had caught with the rest of the rubbish really well and the 'mortar bomb explosions' were in fact old aerosol spray cans exploding in the heat. This is something I chose to admit to only a select few for obvious reasons and thankfully I think everyone on the ground was too knackered as well as relieved, not to mention in a state of shock, to launch too much of an inquiry into what had happened. By the time we returned from our patrol the following week, the whole thing was a distant memory that will no doubt be written in to future Northern Ireland training programmes.

Despite these moments of fun, I was once again getting that old restless feeling in my water. Over the previous couple of years a lot of my old mates had left the army. We had received a lot of new younger recruits from the training depot, who, despite the training sessions that I regularly held for them in the NAAFI bar, seemed as though they could never replace my old drinking buddies. As a result of this, together with the uncertainty of the recently announced plans for cutbacks within the armed forces and foreseeing a surge of redundant soldiers hitting the job centre at the same time, I took the decision to quit while I was ahead and asked the army to release me. I had the mandatory speeches from everyone from the bottle washer in the 'Plastic Pub' to the colonel about how good a soldier I was and how I shouldn't do anything hasty that I might regret. But, true to form, I had made my decision and no one was going to talk me out of it.

So on 31 August 1991 I boarded a helicopter for my final journey to Belfast, leaving the safety of the only thing I had ever known for the previous six years, and began the first step to becoming a civilian again. It was a strange day, one I had awaited for three months since I had first made my decision, but when the day came I felt nothing of the relief I had expected. All I felt was sadness, as though in a way I was letting my mates down by leaving them in this place to face another year of danger without me.

I felt extremely anxious as to whether I had made the right decision as I didn't have a clue what Civvy Street would have to offer an ex-soldier with no training other than infantry tactics and weaponry. However, it's too late now, I thought as the helicopter rose away from what had been my life for so long and the only people I would truly trust again for a long time. In a strange way I felt like I had committed a terrible act of cowardice. Despite having served six years, I almost felt like ordering the pilot to turn back a couple of times during the twenty-minute or so flight, and I probably would have done so if I had thought he would have listened to me.

When I arrived at Belfast International Airport I ran into a couple of lads from D Company who were waiting for transport to take them to Aldergrove (the military side of the airport). I was able to have a couple of pints of real Guinness with them before they had to go and I was left to my own thoughts for about two hours before my flight.

I always felt particularly vulnerable whilst sitting in this airport, but this time more so as I felt so totally alone and isolated. I began to think how ironic it would be if I were to be blown up or shot now after surviving two tours and with just two hours to go on this, my last. Finally I boarded the flight and within three hours or so I was stepping off the train and taking the short route I had taken many times before from Mottingham Station to my parents' house in Eltham.

5

CIVVY STREET

While I had been away my mum and dad had bought a house back in Wales and my mum, who had never really settled in London, had moved back there and got herself a job with a local health authority. My dad was still at the sports centre but was due to take early redundancy the following year. So the pressure was on because I didn't really want to spend any more time than necessary in the environment that hadn't changed a great deal since I had joined the army to get away from it in 1985.

I took the first couple of weeks off. The army had owed me a couple of weeks' wages and I felt as though I could do with the time to readjust. I was to find it would take me a lot longer than two weeks to learn to cope with the outside world again. It was something I hadn't really thought about, but I didn't have any idea how to survive in this strange outside world. For six years I had relied on the army for everything -food, clothes, accommodation, security -and now for the first time in my life I was hearing all about mortgages and how you even had to pay for your water and electricity.

This may sound stupid to some, but it is something that you take for granted in the army and I was struggling to learn how to cope, in much the same way, as I was to learn later, that long-term prisoners struggle on their eventual release. In the same way, the army had just kicked me back into the society they had just as quickly scooped me up from all those years earlier without any form of rehabilitation or resettlement course as they call it.

While I was desperate for money and guidance, my old mate Simon's dad, Jim, came to my rescue and offered me a few weeks' work labouring for his firm in the Inner Temple opposite the High Court in Fleet Street. This was a good job and I was grateful for the opportunity, but I knew it was only temporary and I was beginning to panic about my long-term future.

In the end I was forced to take a security job with Reliance Security Services on a new development near St Catherine's Dock in East London. Initially I hated this job. After the army it seemed like a right Mickey Mouse company, although I was to learn later after joining the Prison Service just what working for a real Mickey Mouse firm was like. The job entailed seven twelve-hour days followed, after three days off, by seven twelve-hour nights from six in the morning to six at night. I am not taking anything away from security guards when I say that personally I felt that I was worth more than this but I just didn't know what at the time.

Things did look up when after about four months I was promoted to the dizzy heights of shift supervisor and was joined at the site by Harry, my old mate from two RGJ, and Louis, an ex-Green Jacket from the First Battalion who I new from my Shrewsbury days. From then on we formed our own little clique, and it wasn't long before we had the whole complex sussed out and keys for every store cupboard and kitchen on it.

They were long and boring days, but the three of us did our best to liven them up. We carried out classic boredom pranks like putting boot polish on the receivers of all the telephones in the offices in the early hours, then stood giggling as we noticed these pathetic yuppies flapping around all day with black ears, none of them noticing their own ears and each too scared to tell the others about theirs. On night shift we would rig doors to slam and send other security guards and mobile units off on wild goose chases around our site and other sites all over London. On one particularly long and boring night we even moved the entire contents of an office owned by a mobile phone company two floors up to a vacant floor. These were childish acts, I know, but it kept us going, although none of us was surprised that the company had lost the bid for the renewal of the security contract when it came up at the end of the year.