People from the Coquet Valley have served - and are currently on duty all over the world in the Armed Forces – Northern Ireland, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and the Far East. In every conflict that the country has been involved in, north Northumbrians
have been there.
One of my grandfathers was a Royal Artillery gunner in Burma, his brother Dodie 'the Sheriff' was at Dunkirk. My uncle Wilf served in Hong Kong and Germany with the Northumberland Fusiliers and my uncle Brian was a fireman in the RAF.
Many men from the village were held prisoners of war in horrendous conditions by the merciless Japanese and were forced to work on the bridge over the River Kwai.
There are currently lads in the RRF, the RAF Regiment and Police and a lass at Military College. Several men in the village are engaged in the local TA Battalion and one has long been reckoned to be a Special Forces operative. But if I revealed his identity, he would probably have to make me disappear. He might anyway!
Many have been lost, both in action and perhaps even more tragically and sadly, in peace time at home. One, a tough-as-nails Royal Marine, injured his back and now lives in constant pain. Another was with the Parachute Regiment in the Falklands. Others in the Guards Regiments. It's the same in all the villages and towns around the area.
There is a great camaraderie in the Forces, but you can't beat being back in the Coquet Valley, especially for Christmas. The low sun rising orange over the black hills of Simonside into a sky bruised blue and purple at dawn, a sharp frost on the ground with the grass stiff like sugar-coated fancies. A chill air with breath rising like smoke as someone emerges from the cover of their scarf to bid you good morning.
The warm, inviting glow of lights and muffled talking and laughter as you approach the doors of a pub through the dark with a thirst in your throat. It beats getting your turkey in a mess tin.
I've heard that the Gazette is being posted out to the Middle East regularly and being used in the toilets when the squaddies run out of bog roll. But I strenuously deny that when they wipe, this column is the only page were more muck comes off than goes on!
Take care, heads down, come home soon.
