When the Royal Marine Band and military recruiters visited her school, Diane was immediately drawn to the idea of joining the armed forces. She first applied to the Royal Navy, but the prospect of being posted to her home town of Plymouth didn’t offer the adventure she was looking for. Then she learned that the Army could send her further afield — and that was all the encouragement she needed. At just seventeen, she enlisted, and her journey with the Women’s Royal Army Corps began. After her initial training at Guildford, Diane was posted to Kineton where she worked with classified documents and ammunition. She was then posted to Northern Ireland as a volunteer searcher and worked alongside the Royal Military Police. Diane describes the issues women faced in the army, and the mistreatment of female corps by male soldiers. Whilst in this posting she experienced the bombing of Newry in 1980 and soon after decided to leave Ireland. Diane was then moved to Berlin where she worked as a clerk for the Royal Transport Corps. Although Diane feels forever connected to the WRAC, she felt strongly that there were innate issues with the female corps surrounding pay discrepancy, limited opportunities for women on the front-line, and multiple attempts to stop women's careers on the conditions of marriage and pregnancy.

Coming from a musical and artistic family, John was attracted to military service as an opportunity to become a professional musician. He joined the Staffordshire Regiment, and after arduous basic training, joined the military band. He focused on the cornet and the double bass and describes his development as a musician. He puts his success down to hard work; he wanted to become a professional musician in a military band and he would do whatever it took to achieve this. He was then given the opportunity to train at Kneller Hall, which he describes as ‘the mecca for army music’. He practised hard and won a prize for the most improved musician on double bass as well as best double bass musician for that year. Following graduation, he spent time in Northern Ireland, then Gibraltar. Eventually he became an instructor in the Prince of Wales division and from there back to Kneller Hall as a student Bandmaster. Having graduated, he became the first black bandmaster and went to the Cheshire Regiment and from there to Bosnia and the first Gulf War. He describes his time with the Cheshire Regiment, during which he received a commission before retiring in 2000.