Need a clean break from my soldier son
SOB… sob… sob. Tomorrow my eldest son finally flees the nest to join the Army’s Corps of Royal Engineers.
I’ve checked and rechecked the packing list. My husband’s sorted out all the male toiletry requirements. I’ve got the underwear ticked off. And the socks. And an iron. I only wish I could be at the barracks to witness him using it!
After months of waiting (due to Covid), we’re delivering him to deepest, darkest Surrey, where I’m hoping they’ll teach him – among other things – that bomb sites belong in war zones, not in bedrooms, bathrooms or kitchens.
As much as I love him, I’m not joking when I say it’s about time he took his passion for causing chaos in every room he inhabits, elsewhere.
His bedroom – a homage to Chelsea FC – permanently resembles an upturned skip that’s just dumped its cargo.
I am SO looking forward to getting to grips with it, in the hope that
when he returns home on leave his new army tidiness will compel him to keep it how he found it.
My husband is particularly looking forward to not constantly having to retrieve his pants, socks, T-shirts, and anything else of his that’s gone missing, from my son’s volcanic eruption of a bedroom.
I am sad he’s going. But I’m proud he’ll be joining other like-minded young men to train and eventually serve alongside some of the finest, most upstanding professionals this country possesses.
Some years ago I presented a series for Sky TV called Forces
Reunited in which, as it says in the title, I reunited former servicemen and women who’d served in various conflicts around the world.
I can honestly say that I have never in my life encountered such an impressive bunch of fine, selfless, dutiful, respectful and astonishingly brave people. It was a huge privilege to meet them and to witness their tangible sense of duty.
No wonder the British Army is widely considered to offer the best training in the world and to therefore turn out troops ranked as supreme – some would say the best – on the planet. But in doing so they’d inevitably end up in an argument with Donald Trump. Who doesn’t?
Nevertheless, our troops ARE the best of the best and I couldn’t be prouder that my son is about to join them.
I’m very much looking forward to him coming home on leave armed with a compelling sense of duty to keep his room, the bathroom and the kitchen, immaculately clean and tidy.
Maybe that’s asking too much, though. Even of the world’s finest army!
Couldn’t be prouder that my eldest is about to join our troops
of Norway.