The Loose Screw Page 8

  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 b
ack 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.

  Meanwhile, the situation at home had not improved much since I had left home at fifteen. Although my dad was now away in Wales most weekends and I was working long hours, when our paths did cross it was a pretty tense atmosphere. When I initially left the army I had applied to join the Ministry of Defence Police and had sat and passed the exam at the Royal Ulster Constabulary headquarters in Enniskillen. The officer adjudicating advised me that I would definitely pass as long as I wrote all my answers in pencil. Almost a year later, after I had gone through two further interviews and a home visit and while I was waiting for a date to report to the training depot, I received a letter telling me that the Ministry was very sorry but as a result of the recent announcement of the cutbacks in the military they were cancelling all recruitment. They were therefore unable to offer me employment at this time -bastards. I had been counting on that to get me out of the dead-end security job it now looked as though I was stuck with. I really began to start panicking about what I was going to do as I knew that I would not be able to stick it out where I was for very much longer.

  Out of sheer desperation I did the one thing everyone said I would do prior to leaving Omagh -I wrote to my old company commander, Major Rose, asking him if he could arrange for me to re-enlist. I was shocked and extremely hurt by the brief and very blunt reply I received a few days later, after all his reassurances the day I left. He had told me in his office that I was such an asset and he was truly sorry to lose me and if at any time I found I was struggling all I had to do was drop him a line and he would sort everything out. However, the letter he wrote was short and quite frankly rude, basically telling me that I had made my bed and I now had to lie in it and that there was no way he could arrange for my re-enlistment now or in the future. I was devastated, not so much because I had lost the hope of rejoining but because a man I had respected and given so much time and dedication to, and who not six months ago I would have protected with my own life, was now writing to me as if I no longer existed.

  Although this upset me a great deal, I didn't lose any sleep over it. As my friend Charlie Bronson who I was to meet a couple of years later would say, "You've got to just take it on the chin whatever life throws at you. It's not worth crying about" -words of wisdom from a man who truly knows the meaning of getting over such obstacles that are thrown in your path in life.

  So here I was, stuck in a badly paid dead-end job with all my best plans for the future shattered in the form of two letters received in the space of about one week. It was now early January 1992 and I had the added pressure of my dad's voluntary redundancy looming, due to take place in June, which would effectively render me homeless. At this time I was involved in a relationship with a girl called Jackie who lived with her parents in nearby Pratts Bottom.

  Although I had and never would forget Natasha, I was scared that too much had passed since we had last seen each other. I knew I wasn't ready to handle rejection from her at that time or get my fears confirmed that she may be happily married and not want me disrupting her new life. This didn't mean that I never thought about how things would have been had we stayed together, and I tried on a number of occasions to find the courage to knock on her mum's door whenever I passed through Greenwich.

  I didn't really want the relationship with Jackie to get too serious, as I was not sure what I was going to do with my life let alone get into a long-term relationship and get tied down so soon after leaving the army. However, I was in no position to argue when she suggested that we buy a house together to coincide with my dad leaving for Wales. Eventually I was swept away with the whole process of house hunting and before I knew it 'we' had bought a two-bedroom house in Sidcup. I think it would be fair to say that both of us knew from fairly early on that the relationship would not last, and after many arguments and disagreements we both finally made the decision to go our separate ways four years later in 1996.

  I felt relieved that we had finally managed to free ourselves from a difficult relationship. The only thing that broke my heart was having to leave my then two-year-old daughter, Lauren, who had been born on 20 February 1994. Lauren was the only reason that the relationship had lasted as long as it had, but we both came to the responsible decision that it was not fair for her to grow up in such an atmosphere. We obviously still have to see each other regularly when Lauren comes to stay, and luckily we are able to get on well for Lauren's sake. Jackie is now in another relationship and I believe that they are both very happy, as I am.

  I had solved the housing problem, so all I had to do then was solve the employment problem and get a job that would pay me enough money to pay for the new house. Every day I would catch the five o'clock train from Mottingham Station, get off at London Bridge and walk the couple of miles over the bridge to St Catherine's Dock. On the way I would buy just about every available paper in order to scan the job section during my twelve-hour shift. This bourgeois existence went on until one day I noticed some sort of cap badge taking up a whole page in the Daily Mirror's job section. On further examination I read it was a national recruiting advert for prison officers and my eyes fell onto the wages quoted, which started at £16,500 a year, a rise of nearly £7,000 from what I was currently earning. It was not a job I would have considered under normal circumstances, but I was in a pretty desperate situation at the time, and on that basis I decided to apply. I thought that at the very least it would offer me the wages I needed as well as the sense of comradeship that I missed from my army days.

  The first stage of selection was to sit a multiple choice test at Cleland house, and at the end of the test they read out some of the names of the candidates who were in
the room and asked them to leave. After a period of about twenty minutes, during which time I had convinced myself that I had failed, one of the examiners returned and congratulated us on passing this first hurdle.

  Some weeks later my old pal Harry went through the same process, and I had forewarned him of the way candidates are split after the test and assured him that if he was left in the room he had passed. On the day of Harry's test they called out the names one by one until eventually Harry was the only one left in the room. He sat back on his chair rather pleased with himself at being the only one to have passed and waited patiently, he said, for someone to come and measure him up for his uniform. About an hour went by before one of the examiners came back and asked Harry what he was still doing there. Harry told him that he was the only one to pass the exam, only to find that they had changed the format since I was there and he was in fact the only one to have failed. I could just picture that smug, satisfied look on his face slowly changing as he put his tail between his legs and left. Harry being the kind of guy he was did not let it bother him too much and after a few different jobs is now a fully trained mechanic. I sometimes wish that I had failed that test.

  The second phase of selection was in the format of a formal interview in front of three senior Prison Service personnel once again at Cleland House. I remember that day well. I had been on night shift the previous evening and had gone straight to the interview after getting changed out of my security uniform. Due to the rush-hour traffic I arrived at Cleland House with very little time to spare and rushed to the lifts after getting directions from the guard on the door. I just managed to squeeze through the doors of the lift before they closed fully, and almost crashed into a middle-aged woman who was the only other passenger. Nervously I said, "Thanks, love. I've got an interview with some dinosaurs for the Prison Service upstairs and I am already running a bit late. Knowing my luck I will get some left-wing lesbian sitting on the board who will more interested in my keeping her waiting a couple of minutes than finding out what I have to offer."