Mental Health 3 (i)

Bulford (3 UK Div) 206 Signal Squadron

1997

I arrived at Bulford on a bit of a downer in May 1997, as I wanted to get posted to York as it was closer to Liverpool, because even after almost two years in, I was getting a bit fed up with being away from Liverpool and got home every weekend I could.  I was also in between my Uncle Frank passing and finding my Auntie Ann being seriously ill - although we (my Dad and myself) were unsure what it was for.  She was to pass a month later.

Militarily, things didn't particularly start well when the shite started raining down after my first PT session.  I'm not sure if it was a bog-standard squadron run, or if it was where we did a basic fitness test which involves running a mile and half in a group then running a mile and half under your own steam to get as quick as possible time, within a set time.  Whatever it was, I was berated for either not being quick enough and/or not having enough stamina.  I had hardly done any PT/physical work since the February where I embarked on my driver training and had leave after completing.  I was even slated for the way I ran.  Petty, I know.  I was also forced to sign for a huge tent for an exercise that I didn't even go on, that went missing, of which I would also go On Orders for when the squadron buggered off to South Georgia and Croatia almost a year later.

Work-wise the rest of the period leading up to summer was generally quiet enough.  I went on to complete my C+E driver training, where I probably had one of the best driving instructors I've ever had.  There was one day just before my test, I was brought on quite a testing route around Salisbury, which I had apparently come through, "Perfectly, and was the only person that had."  I also really enjoyed my driving test and probably had one of my best drives ever.  I was also starting to make my mark with the Divisional cricket team, and by the end of the summer, I was expected to play at regimental level the following summer.  We also had our divisional exercise, at which I was put on sentry duty as the RSM and CO were arriving to initiate an NBC status.  As this was happening, I became within a couple of feet from a live badger in daylight and will always be one of my finest and surreal moments.

Outside of work other cracks were beginning to form personally as a result of floor parties when someone threatened to give me a hiding; what for I can't remember, but I was probably just defending myself from someone that couldn't take it - just so happened he was a Lance Jack.  I remember it being the same night as the infamous Roberto Carlos free kick in Le Tournoi.  Before going on summer leave, we had a huge block party, which was to prove monumental for the rest of my life.  After or during my second can, I was in bare feet stepping from my room to linoleate floor and slipped on spillage from a can that someone hadn't properly emptied.  I had a heavy landing on my arse and hurt my back and instantly knew I did damage.  Initial feeling it was my coccyx and thought there was little I could do for it.  I eventually got up and got pissed to numb the pain.  The night was also eventful because some of my roomate's property was trashed (he was away at the time, and I had been forced to 'host' the party).

I came back after summer leave almost getting a hiding for the party I was forced to host, and hoping the rest would sort the back out, but I still felt unable to do any PT, and decided to report sick, which went on for a number of weeks and can't remember when, it eventually got to November where I requested to go for an x-ray - I think I might have been attached to HQ Squadron to give me further technical generator experience prior to sitting my Class 2 exam.  The x-ray revealed that I'd suffered a fracture of the L5 vertebra which hadn't healed properly, and was then referred to HMS Haslar, which was the big military hospital of the area for further investigation.  I think I also sat my Class 2 exam around this time without little experience before or around it and came 2nd to someone that had more experience than me - and the amount of cheating that went on around it because the presiding NCO left the exam.  I think it was just myself and the lad that finished ahead of me that didn't revert to cheating.  While all this was going on, I was getting a serious amount of shit regarding the back which included from the Squadron Sergeant Major and was seriously thinking of getting out and had submitted my notice - well there wasn't a lot that had gone well.

I went home for Christmas, and spend most of in, and didn't go out anywhere because I couldn't hardly walk and wracked in pain.  It got to the night before NYE and decided to go out for a few pints with my mate Mark around Bootle (we'd discussed our options of where might be best to go and planned around where would be open late and ease of getting home: me with my mobility issues and him getting back to Kirkby).  When leaving Sullivan's I was in a better frame of mind - so to speak - and walked home.  On the journey home there became an issue with a group of lads, who eventually caught up with us, metres away from home.  I was hit over the head and to the ground with a stick, and as I attempted to get back up, was kicked in the nose, rendering me unconscious.  A guy that knew from one of the facing shops saw what was going on and phoned the police and ambulance, with me coming around after the ambulance arrived and Mark fighting off attackers with his belt.  I was sent home from hospital, only to return again and spending NYE in hospital.

1998

The first few months of the year in work, you could safely say I was pissed off, everyone was pissing me off, and for whatever reason I was pissing them off mostly because of my health situation: back and nose/assault, and everyone was out to get me somehow (those aren't just my words, other people that saw what was going on told me), and they did eventually.  When the division was preparing to go to Bosnia-Croatia, I was informed that I was to drive HQ Squadron to the ranges, only with it being an early, first-thing job, I was unable to get my access to my wagon in the garage to transport people going including the RSM.  My troop Corporal was told he couldn't be disturbed because he was off for his birthday to get the garage open, so then there was the mad dash to get the garage open to get my wagon and get to pick HQ Sqn up by 08:00.  I ended up getting to them at 08:05 - even 10 mins early is late, so it transpired that I would be Up for Orders - which in itself was a stitch-up.  Your Troop Sergeant who is meant to in some way speak up for you didn't.  I got three days Restriction of Privileges.  There was also another run-in where one of the Radio Operators came demanding a certain number of generators to be ready.  I retorted, "Are you going to have them all fixed?"  She went back to one of the Officers and told him what I said.  You can guess the rest.

Everyone going away gave me a bit of relief from some of the protagonists, mainly in my troop giving me shit, and it became apparent had I hadn't had the back problem would have gone to South Georgia.  I was still stuck with an arsehole of a Troop Sergeant who hated me, who had even said on a forced PT session/run that, "In previous days I would have been shot."  The PTI took me off the run because I couldn't keep up.  When everyone had gone, I was called to the Squadron Office regarding my notice to leave, that hadn't been progressed, was ripped up and sellotaped back together.  This time around I had stated that I wished it to be progressed.  I was also attending other appointments for my back and nose, and was informed that I required a septoplasty, which took place the day after the England-Argentina QF (I had also already had a week confined to my room with my back during the intense period of games at the start, which turned out handy).  Whilst I was off after the septoplasty, I had to attend an appointment for my back and had to get the train to Portsmouth from Liverpool.  The journey home wasn't the best having been informed that I had Spondylolisthesis and was offered surgery that was 60-40 in favour of being successful - which I declined.

While everyone was away, there was another couple of incidents that brought me to the attention of arseholes up the food chain.  We'd had an arsehole who'd been put into my room, who thought he could attach a bass bin to the cheap hi-fi system I was able to buy from someone without him asking me.  We were given an afternoon off to watch an England game with bringing your own bevvy.  I was getting into Kronenbourg then and I think it was 6 cans for £5 from the NAAFI.  Those were polished off for me to buy another 6 to go back to my room with, which ended up with me launching his bass bin out of the window (I was top floor of a three-storey accommodation block), which loads saw.  In retaliation, he took the shortwave radio I had, which was £150 bought in 1992 with my last wages when I left the first time, because I wouldn't give him the £100 to pay for his bass bin.  Again, he went crying to an Officer and I had to give the £100.  The second incident involved him again.  He had gone home, and the lad I also shared a room with from Birkenhead, and a Lance Jack from Wigan in HQ Squadron who I'd got to know over the summer doing guard duty decided to drink loads of vodka in our room one Friday night, and ended up trashing the lad's bed, mostly with tea and coffee, but I went a step further by peeing on it.  The Saturday the lad from Wigan and myself decided we'd go up to Liverpool via Wigan for Whizz to go to Cream (we didn't get in because it was full).  When I got back to Bulford on the Sunday, the lad whose bed we wrecked was already back.  The PTI who pulled me off the run warned me for Orders.  Later on, that night, the lad chinned me when I was in a bit of a defenceless position, and I more or less took the rap, which transpired in me paying for the bedding/mattress, with the lad from Wigan getting off scott-free.

Additional context: the lad from Wigan and myself decided that we'd go to the last Full On at Nation (Cream), during the August Bank Holiday weekend when we were doing guard duty, where I transpired to have Ecstasy for the first time.

When people started returning over the September and October, the shit started ramping up again and was of the mindset of not caring about being caught by a random drug test.  I'd already admitted to the NCO in charge of the guard during the Summer that I'd thought about going to Ireland for a few days (even than it was still Haram as the Good Friday Agreement was still wet, and we had the Omagh bomb), who decided to go apeshit with me, and only slightly calmed when I said I didn't go.  Had I have gone I wouldn't have returned.  The thing that stopped me was that it was probably better in the long run.  There was one Saturday when the lad from Wigan, his then girlfriend and I went to the New Forrest and smoked a bit of weed - I only literally had a few drags.  I got back to my room to find the Troop Sergeant (might have been Staff Sergeant then) hanging around inside my room giving me the 3rd degree, to which I remonstrated smoking a few fags, showing him my fags.  After that there were drug searches which I missed for other appointments, which culminated when I was doing another stint of guard duty.  A load of us went clubbing during that stint where I'd taken Ecstasy for the second time.  When we were inspected the next day, I was one of the few that passed and had it quite easy as a result by missing out on extra jobs.  Later that week, there was a division-wide drug test (maybe Tuesday?), and crapped myself a wee bit.  I decided that I needed to rush back to my room to take my dihydrocodeine that I had prescribed for my back and declare it in the hope of it missing testing.

By the time the lead up the Christmas came, I was getting to the dungeons of my emotions.  My birthday was shit, people were being shit, the lad from Wigan was pissing me off, and it came to head the night before block inspection before Christmas, and I decided to end it all.  I had taken all my medications for my back which were Distalgesics, diclofenac and maybe a dihydrocodeine I had left.  Instead of getting me straight to the hospital, I was taken from pillar to post around the camp before getting to hospital, where I was discharged and taken and left in a cell in the Guardroom.  The next day I was put in front of the SSM, who told me to go home a day early for Christmas leave.  Getting home, I was pretty all over the place and took out a loan on the strength I was getting medically discharged (as I was wrongly informed - along with my Dad) to see me through Christmas, and for the first few weeks of getting out.  Over the Christmas holiday, I was able to reconnect with the lads I grew up with and encountering the first time I took cocaine.

1999

As I was going on terminal leave after the third week of January, when I got back after Christmas, my leaving routine was pretty much mapped out, and what pissed people off particularly my Troop Corporal who was now Troop Sergeant and who also hated my guts despite being a Liverpool fan was the fact I'd de-kitted during the first week and wasn't doing any work as you have to go around camp to get signatures for a sort of clearance before going back on to Civvy Street.

The weekend before getting out, I hired a car to bring my bigger things home so that I'd just have to worry about having one bag the final weekend.  The lad from Wigan and the lad from Birkenhead decided they wanted to come up with me.  I got home to find my dad had quietly moved out and not told me.  Saturday night the lad from Wigan and myself went around Liverpool city centre, with him acting like a tit about getting back to Bootle and people even laughing at him.  I threatened to leave him in the city centre if he didn't get his act together.  On the Sunday before travelling to go back down I decided to go to the Marine in Waterloo (which had become my local over the past 3-4 years) for a pint, he said he was going to drive back.  As we went to order drinks he decided he wasn't going to drive - maybe his final act of being an arsehole with me?  I don't recall speaking to him again when I got back to camp, and still to this day regret ever having my first experience of Ecstasy with him.  Finally getting out became a relief but not fully knowing what I was going to do, even though I made a decision to go to university after doing an Access Course, but was unsure whether to move towards Law or Science.