Chapter 1: Warminster

Warminster Camp is probably my favourite posting in the UK. I'd been there for a couple of months when I was in the Junior Leaders, it's where I do my parachute continuation training to keep my airborne status, and it is also where I did the Warrior APC commander's course. The local villages and towns are friendly and welcoming and the climate is usually temperate, although midwinter on Salisbury Plain can freeze your bollocks off. I'm a city bred boy but I love the countryside around Warminster and the Wiltshire/ Dorset border. Salisbury Plain itself is a magical part of England, with the brooding pile of Stonehenge and the lesser known, but even older, Avebury Rings. Further afield are the Iron Age hill forts of Maiden Castle and Hod Hill. The area is the heart of the ancient kingdom of Wessex, and is the very soul of England.

My previous spells at Warminster had always been associated with good times, but at first it seemed that this would be a different experience. It was a double whammy. I was missing Pippa like crazy, and it took a heap of self-control not to go back to Aldershot to see her before she went off to Durham, and this was coupled with the fact I wasn't accommodated with the battalion and so missed all my mates from Bravo Company, especially my section brothers. Serving in a war zone, even without any fighting, brings a section together as close as brothers. I was now accommodated in the permanent training staff block, and it took a little time to get to know my fellow corporal instructors. In the meantime I felt alone and unloved ... aah.

I was also still in some doubt about Miriam. It was obvious that she had changed from the girl who had sent me off with a flea in my ear three years ago-- we had made love quite successfully on my return from Kuwait-- however I had been there before, and I couldn't face going through the emotional roller coaster of getting close to her again, and then suffering the upset of being rebuffed by her a few months down the line.

That first week end at Warminster I had spent alone, well I did go to a pub for Sunday lunch, but I spent much of the time in unaccustomed introspection, reflecting on my life and of the past three years with Pippa, wondering if I had made a mistake in not leaving the army and taking up with her. Oh yes, and also pondering on the Meaning of Life ... It was that sort of a weekend.

During most of this soul searching time I was sat up on a ridge overlooking the rolling landscape of Wiltshire. The sun dappled trees and flower scented hedgerows, churches with spires like stone needles, towering above neat thatch-roofed cottages set around glinting village duck ponds, all these clichés of 'Merrie England' were spread out before me. Behind me, further up on the Plain, skylarks soared skywards from wind waved, grass covered slopes, their thrilling trilling song sound hanging in the air.

I consider myself a typical Englishman, not one to become all emotional when the National Anthem is played or when the Union Flag is raised, or even when 'Land of Hope and Glory' (which I consider a rabble rousing song) is sung, but sat up on that ridge I realised what a beautiful and magical country was my England.