I’ve always viewed being in the military the ‘safe’ option, which, when you really stop to think about it, seems either stupid or naive given what’s required of most personnel in the military. Though it’s true, I worked on what was called a front-line base, meaning our squadrons were considered not defence but an attack option. You’d think we’d be one of the first bases bombed in any invading scenario that involved the Russians, or, as they were at the time, Soviet Union. The wall hadn’t come down while I was still serving. So you would think that I was less safe on a military base than say living in any city in the UK. But, not so. In terms of violence and crime, assaults on women, and yes, they did happen, even on a military base. We, women and personnel in general, were more protected than most civilians going about their daily lives. We were afforded a lot more than most. And, having been brought up in the life, I was accustom to that …

When I was a very young child, my dad had an affectionate term of endearment for me. He called me Dandelion. Well, dandelion head. But mostly I was his “little dandelion.” Why? Because I have ultra fine, fly-away baby hair. Hair that, even on the best of days, forms a static-induced halo that obviously resembles a dandelion when it’s gone to seed. And so, for most of my formative years I was a dandelion to my father and, occasionally, when I was behaving, a little angel to my mother. A mother who spent countless hours spit-smoothing my hair into place. Or, dampening a small wooden comb she carried, in order to try tame my wild hair. Yes, my hair is still short, blond, and prone to floating around my head in a halo of fluff. I am and will always be, the dandelion kid.

In complete contrast to meeting Princess Anne, while stationed in Germany our base was graced with a royal visit from Princess Margaret. The two visits couldn’t have been more different. This one was on a grand scale and involved a military parade, a band, lots of flags, a fly-by of fighter jets, and an afternoon Garden Party in the Officer’s Mess grounds. It certainly didn’t involve Margaret meeting the ordinary service personnel except for those unlucky enough to be picked to be on parade for her arrival. Not that I got away unscathed. I was volunteered by my Admin Corporal to do door duty on Margaret’s arrival. They wanted a number of well presented young women to open and close doors, rather than a bunch of men. Not sure why, but that’s how it went down. So, like those other poor volunteers I spent the week before the arrival doing “door practise”, as if we needed practise on knowing how to open and close a door. But, apparently, there’s a protocol for everything. Two weeks …

My sister breaks things. It’s a fact—a family fact. She doesn’t just break ordinary things like you or I might do; dishes, glassware, bones in our body, no. My sister breaks things like, the internet. What? Oh, okay, so maybe it wasn’t her, per se, who caused Google to have a nervous breakdown, thereby causing everyone one on the planet to collectively hold their breathes. But we, that is, our family, on hearing of another Google outage immediately think, Anne! Yes, we actually text and or message one another asking, did she do it, did she break Google, again? You see, my sister has this knack, put her within 3 feet of a remote handset and you can guarantee it, any programme you might have set to record will either start in the middle, end before it’s supposed to, record another channel entirely, or doesn’t record because it set itself to another century from now. We have no idea why, let alone the ‘how,’ but it happens. She goes through fancy watches like you and …

I was lucky enough or, depending on who you speak to, unlucky enough to meet a few royals during my time in the military. My first time was at RAF Mountbattan, in Plymouth, UK, when I had the chance to see and shake hands with the now Princess Royal, Princess Anne. Who, at the time, was doing a number of royal visits to Plymouth and, as it happened, chose to stop in for afternoon tea with us WRAFs in the women’s block sitting room. Which, of course, meant that days before the planned event, that was to be only about an hour in length, we all had to clean the entire block, top to bottom. And yes, paint stuff outside that included hydrants, and white boarder stones around the two tiny pieces of front garden. I think I was probably the only person there, other than maybe the two WRAF admin staff excited about the prospect of meeting a royal. I had seen Princess Anne, at a distance, on two other occasions as an air …