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Now, a little about Royal Air Force Germany; RAF(G).

RAF(G) was formed as part of the commitment by NATO to protect West Germany from invasion and/war from Russia and the Soviet Bloc.

This was very serious, a large percentage of time was spent training for the time when Russia would invade, playing war games, driving tanks and missile launchers over the countryside, and RAF(G) would deploy to airfields and other sites near to the border to engage the Soviets.

Every few months, exercises would be held, in the woods and countryside of West Germany where the scenarios would be played out.

This meant that RAF(G) was a different prospect from bases at home, where exercises did happen, and each base had to reach certain standards, but the actual threat of an enemy air force attacking a base at home was unlikely. Not so in Germany.

This meant that people serving would apply to the doctrine of working hard and playing hard. There was no proper TV to watch, just a single channel provided by the SSVC made from tapes sent over on the trooper flights from the UK. News and Sports could be a week old. This meant that socialising was very important. Even more so than back in Blighty.

By the time I was posted in, the wall had come down, Russia was in freefall and in the West there was talk of a "peace bonus and "drawdown". Although, the IRA had not forgotten about BFOR, British Forces on the Rhein, and subjected our bases to surveillance and on occasion, attack. We were aware that home, at work or in the committee we were considered viable targets. Even after the wall came down.

I was posted to BFPO 43, RAF Laarbruch in July 1993, right when change was well under way. Personnel at Laarbruch had mostly been at the previous Harrier base at Gutersloh, and had their tours extended to oversee the handover from Phantoms to Harriers. So, for the first year of our tour we heard the pained refrain "it wasn't like that at Gut".

I had to catch a train to London then back up to Luton to catch the trooper flight to another RAF Base, Bruggen (more of that later), where a bs was waiting to take us and our baggage loaded with kit to Laarbruch.

I sat on the bis looking at the window at the rich and rolling countryside around Monchengladbach, heading towards the Dutch boarder, where our new home was.

Why go to RAF(G)?

Well, it was exciting. It was another country, you could travel from this place in Germany all over Europe.

You get get cheap, tax free cars. Andrea and I had made do with an ancient Skoda Estelle for two years, sometimes not able to afford to get it taxed, so risking arrest every time we went out to Tesco in it. We dreamed of a nice new or fairly new car. This we hoped would stop our arguments.

In married quarters, you paid a fixed rate for heating and power, the fabled X/Y payment, and if you used less, which was always overestimated, you got a huge chunk of cash back, normally around £300 back each year.

Many goods were tax free; petrol, coffee, booze, tobacco and so on were a fraction of what they were back home.

But another good reason was the tax free shopping scheme that operated, meaning you could shop tax free, getting for the same money that you would buy stuff that was laminated chipboard back home, but would be solid oak furniture. In three years you could have a house full of new quality furniture, and/or a new car, or taken frequent holidays around Europe. Even places like the Rhine or Mosel Valleys were a couple of hours drive away, close enough for a nice day out or wandering and wine tasting.

To us, living for two on my Airman's pay, it seemed like heaven, and was.

At first, I was billetted in transit accommodation, sharing a 12 bed room with cooks and other trades, but mostly cooks. I mention this because on Tuesday, Catering Squadron had a bar, where people from outside the squadron could be invited. A bottle of Grolsch cost 80 pfennings; 30p. A double spirit with free mixer was less. For a 5 DM coin, or £2, you could get very merry indeed. Needless to say, we all went out every night and were mostly very merry indeed.

In theory, this situation should have lasted just a few weeks before your family would come over and you would all move into a married quarter either on base or in the nearby town of Weeze. Only there was a quarter shortage, and at the time, the RAF operated on the principle of "RHIP", or rank has its privilege. In that the time you had served, the rank you had reached, and the time over the years you had been separated from your family accrued you points. The upshot was that those SACs who were newly married remained rooted to the bottom of the housing list, most weeks even going down.

It became clear that by the beginning of September, we would be lucky to be together before Christmas, and anyway, I had other issues to worry about: deployment.

Deployment was where the squadrons and support functions would deploy to an area some distance away, simulating the base being destroyed, or in the case of the Harriers pretending we could operate from the car park of a supermarket. On my first day in the dump there I found I was being deployed. To Denmark.

To me, still very green sounded most serious indeed. I had no idea what deployment entailed, but probably was more serious than the playing about I had been doing up to that point. When there had been exercises at Marham, we used to go into the dump to prep a strike load, once the door was closed to the prep shed, we would take off our gas masks and NBC suits, and after one load had been done, it meant three or four 12 hour shifts playing Uckers or cards. If anyone, including staff wanted to come in, they would have to knock on the building door, giving us time to get back dressed looking like we were taking it seriously.

Anyway, 1993 was the year of No Limit and Euro dance trance music. It and Four Non Blonds and The Spin Doctors were heard everywhere. After a week spent taking down barbed wire for the SWO, we were allowed a night out in Nijmegen. The Marches were on, stages and bars set up in every square. We drank, danced and chatted up the sexy girls we met all night. We got nowhere, except drunk. Our corporal wanted to get some "action", so we had to find his the city brothel, where for a fixed 50 Guilders, he got his way. We drove back, in the minibus, oblivious to all.

So, the deployment started with an 8 hour bus trip north to Hamburg then u across the Danish Border to a base called Vandel.

I had no idea what to expect, and as it turned out, either did our officers either. It had been some years since the Harrier Force had deployed, both 3 and 4 squadrons had mostly new personnel, so it was going to be gentle. For us "duplies", we had to supply one load of weapons at the start of each day, and collect the empty trolley at the end of the day. Only, it was all pretend. Each day we took empty transportation skids, the squadron staff would pretend to load them, we would all generate paperwork saying we had done things we hadn't, and at the end of the day we collected the empty skids, ready to do it all again the next day.

The Danish Air Force provided us with an almost endless supply of nearly free beer, and with stocks of canned cheese and crackers from the BX before we left Germany, we drank and snacked into the wee small hours.

Every night.

We would be at the mess tent, first in the queue for each meal, billy cans and KFS (knife, fork, spoon) at hand, ready for the wonders that the cooks, sorry chefs, conjured up for us.

And in this way, the two weeks flew by. On the middle Saturday, we were bused to nearby Legoland where those us us who were not going to be in bars all day would go to get some brick related culture. We would join the others in the bar later, and catch u with their levels of inebriation. Little did I know this are, around Billund, would become so familiar much later.

We were bused back at the end of the deployment, whilst others had to load truck and drive back. Some 4 tonners with drags took three weeks to get home.

Back home I found I had moved only slightly forward on the list for a quarter. With our first wedding anniversary coming, I was allowed a long weekend with directions on how to get from the local station in Weeze to The Hook of Holland to get me to Harwich early on Friday morning.

So, the duty driver dropped me off, and I made my way over the border into Holland, then caught the boat train, I had no seating or cabin, and all seats were taken, so I sat on the floor and read the whole evening as the ferry crossed to Essex.

Back home it was like being newly married. Andrea didn't know I was coming, so came as a huge surprise. We had a fine weekend until Sunday lunchtime when I had to get back to Harwich on the train and back to base fro Monday morning.

At the end of November, additional quarters were sourced in nearby Duisberg, and we went from being 60th on the list for a quarter, to getting allocated the next, a one bedroom house next door to a dumpie Sergeant on base. We just had a three week wait, so plans were made to have our stuff moved from Marham, and the house cleaned, and finally for me to go back to take Andrea to our new life in Germany.

It had occurred to no one, least of all me, that there would be any issue with Andrea moving to Germany; she had a visa to stay in the UK, but times were different.

We caught the ferry from Harwich, on the day that England had to beat Andora or someone 8-0 and Holland to lose to make the World Cup finals in the USA. England conceded in the first 30 second, rattled in seven or eigt goals, so were short anyway. And Holland won, as a dockworker happily told me as we walked off.

Andrea should have been denied entry into Holland. She only got in as I was with her, and told that she would have to register as an alien in Germany.

What we didn't know was that her being an illegal in Germany would become quite the problem once we divorced, and she was stuck in Germany with no way to get back to UK< and no right to do so, and no clear way how to be deported as she was on an RAF base, but all of that was in the future.

We moved into our house, it had a huge living room, a nice kitchen, large bedroom along with a basement where the washing machine and tumble dryer would be kept, freeing up more space in the house. Around the corner was the NAAFI, where all our British food could be bought, at a price.

We settled into our new life. We bought an almost new VW Golf, it used to be OC Admin's car, one he had conducted an affair with is PA. He let us have it at a pittance, so right away we got one of the things we had dreamed of; a decent car. We went shopping at the local supermarkets, like the German food, mostly similar to what Andrea was used to back home. We used to travel to Cochem in the Mosel Valley where we woudl spend an afternoon beside or on the river at weekends, just enjoying this expanded life we had dreamed of.

Andrea was even able to work, as a cleaner at the on base school, meaning we had even more money, so we could very quickly furnish our quarter with well designed, and sturdy oak furniture. We had pretty much all we had dreamed of, and yet the arguments only got worse.

Over the months, our relationship broke down to the point I realised I did not like her as a person, yet I still felt love.

At this time war was still coming in Yugoslavia, and so she went back home to see her parents while she had the chance, but not knowing if she would be allowed back into Germany if and when she returned. She did come back, and decided she was going to try to make it work.

We went to counselling, but it seems she was just going through the motions. We went for three months and at the end rubbished the whole process, not before admitting she had married me so she could move to the UK. Obvious now, but a nail through my heart, and destroyed any trust I ever had in her. She might have just been saying it, who knows? Maybe not even her.

On May Day 1994 things came to a head and she threatened to report me to my boss. I had to warn him this might be coming, he asked for the background story, and when I was finished he said I should move out of the quarter and back into the barrack block.

As soon as I was out of the house, a weight lifted from me, and I knew I was never going back. But we were seeing each other to have "quality time", to build positive memories. He main worry was that her parents would find out. After many weeks of stonewalling her questions of when I would move back, she said "you're not coming back are you?". It would have been easier to lie, but I sighed, and said no.

It was over.

It was OK for a while, but she began to make up stories about me, reporting me to the chief clerk, who then called my boss, even though there was no proof.

Given the choice of dealing with her or me, they dealt with me, and I was given a temporary 24 posting an hour down the road to RAF Bruggen, where I was put on 17(F) Squadron. And the boys, the armourers, there were great. But in the typical military way, the way it was done in Germany, solace was given through huge amounts of beer and schnapps. Three months i was at Bruggen were a blur, sober during the 5 working days, pissed the rest.

I put on weight, but was happier, and happier still as the divorce progressed, until one day between Christmas and New Year 1995 it became absolute.

I spent an extended Christmas break at my parents, for what turned out to be my Dad's last. But we had a great time, with my friend Andrew coming to stay with us too.

I found out about the divorce upon my return to Bruggen, and although I was happy enough there, I did not see why my now ex-wife should effect me now. So, I pushed for a return, against the wishes of my commanding officer, not the best course of action, but in a few days I was allowed back as there was no reason I should have been kept away, as I had done nothing wrong. Making an enemy of your boss was never a good idea, and as it turned out this was a critical period of my career, and would kill my promotion chances with a damning annual assessment.

But my tour was coming to an end, I would be going back to a UK posting in July, I would enjoy these last few months in Germany, now more sober and surrounded by others whose marriages had also failed to last a German posting.

We used to take turns in driving to either Maastricht or Eindhoven, finding a place to eat, then a night on the razz, after which the sober one would dive and rest would sleep.

It was a fine life, and some of the best days of my life, but we were all damaged goods.

On April 17th my life changed forever. I was sitting in my room watching a game on TV, when there was a loud knock at my door.