Gordon began learning to play the cornet at aged 10, while many of his friends were out playing football. After leaving school, he successfully applied to the Royal Engineers at Chatham at aged 14 and was subsequently accepted as a pupil at Kneller Hall despite being only 14 years old. After 18 months, he succeeded in his exams and returned to Chatham. While there, he was supported to continue his education and studied Music at Trinity College. In 1956, he was accepted back at Kneller Hall, although considered too young for a studentship, but put in for the 6-month exams where he came top of his group. He subsequently took on a bandmaster roll at aged 25, becoming the youngest in the army to achieve this. Gordon goes on to describe his time as bandmaster and the rich variety of opportunities that came his way, including serving in Germany. Ultimately, Gordon became Professor of Band Arranging, Harmony and History Music at Kneller Hall. In the last months of his career he met Princess Anne, who was then Colonel in Chief of his regiment. She was instrumental in organising a celebration of his work in London before he retired.

Dave Buck joined the Cheshire Regiment in 1997 and transferred to the Royal Logistics Corps after completing training. His first posting was to the 5th Airborne Brigade, which became the spearhead for NATO’s KFOR peacekeeping mission, and Dave talks in detail about military life in Kosovo, the destruction he witnessed, and the role – and frustrations – of a peacekeeping force. He shares memories of decompression in Cyprus and exercises in Canada, before recalling the moment he realised he’d achieved everything he’d wanted to do in the army, and left. After intense difficulties adjusting to civilian life, Dave volunteered for a six-month tour of Iraq as a reservist and worked predominantly in force protection, escorting convoys from Basra to Kuwait. After returning home again, the effects of PTSD began to manifest in earnest and Dave hit rock bottom. Eventually, after several years without help and stuck in an ever-downward spiral, Dave received support from Combat Stress who enabled him to recognise his illness, and provided him with ways to cope with and manage the condition he knows he’ll carry with him for the rest of his life.

For the first few years of the war, Leslie Fernandez was an Army Physical Training Corps instructor who trained SOE candidates in Hertfordshire and Manchester (parachuting). He was then invited by Colonel Munn to become an operative, deploying to SE France in July 1944; when the American landed there in August 1944, his group moved to Italy to help the partisans prevent the Germans in Italy from interfering with American operations. He provides a hugely detailed and modestly understated account of SOE operations (he does not mention his Military Medal or Croix de Guerre), starting with selection for different roles and his insertion by parachute, weighed down by weapons and equipment. He focuses heavily on little-known operations in the mountains between France and Italy, gathering explosives from his cache in a bakery, blowing up roads and negotiating the surrender of 80 Germans to 5 SOE. He also talks about the challenges of communication and receiving resupplies in harsh conditions where they were often isolated, as well as the psychological pressure of warfare and seeing people executed. He has fond memories and recalls the bravery of those involved, especially as he married a woman from the region, who was a courier.