Out in the Army: My Life as a Gay Soldier

Praise for
Out in the Army

“
Out in the Army
is the most moving book I have recently read. James Wharton is such a direct and honest writer that he brings you to the verge of tears not only when you expect him to but when you don’t. His love of Queen and country, his husband and his family all come off the printed page and into your heart.”
Paul Gambaccini

“
Out in the Army
is a truly unique look at a soldier’s journey from boy to man, from Wales to war. I couldn’t put it down.”
Antony Cotton

“A deeply moving and personal insight into life in the army. A story of bravery, love and victory. James we salute you.”
Alice Arnold

“A fascinating and charming insight into a remarkable life that wouldn’t have been possible just a few years ago.”
Matthew Cain, Culture Editor,
Channel 4 News

“This acutely observed account of rocket attacks, scorpion bites and blistering heat – populated by mates such as Shagger, Smudge and Scoffy – could have been written a hundred years ago. It’s the coming-out story, a gay wedding and a boyfriend who runs off with a vegan that make it a highly readable and distinctly twenty-first-century boy’s own tale.”
Ben Summerskill OBE

O
ut in the Army
would never have been possible without the support, love and guidance of some very special individuals.

My publisher Iain Dale has had nothing but confidence in me and my story since I first pitched the book to him in May 2012. Since, my editor Hollie Teague has given it great effort and attention. Everyone at Biteback has looked after me extremely well throughout the process of leaving the military and
completing
the book, and I thank them wholeheartedly.

I’m lucky to have some inspirational friends, both inside and outside the army, and all have been incredible. Jonathan Harvey, thank you for the late-night phone calls and endless advice. You put my mind at ease and answered my many questions. Another person I’d like to thank, someone who has essentially acted as my agent over the past year, is Antony Cotton; thanks for the great parties and your friendship.

Thank you Michael Faulkner for your closeness throughout my ten years in the army; I wish you all the best as you embark on civilian life.

Three chaps who changed my life are Dean Perryman, Josh Tate and Jamie McAllen. I owe you guys so much, for being there the night I finally accepted the truth about who I was, and for being loyal ever since.

A long-lasting friend, who has been patiently waiting to read this book for some time, is Donna Carmichael, a person who has given so much of her life and energy to the Blues and Royals Squadron in London. The place would fall apart without you.

In North Wales, I’d like to mention Jason Whalley; my old English teacher from secondary school Margaret Graham; and my godmother and second mum, Linda Jukes.

I’m also particularly grateful to Ben Summerskill OBE at Stonewall and Sir Ian McKellen.

The greatest soldier I ever had the pleasure of serving with also became an incredible ally over the course of my career. Daniel Abbott, I hope the army keeps hold of you for as long as
possible
. Other soldiers, past and present, I’d like to acknowledge are Martin ‘Scoffy’ Clark, Alex Cawley, Geoff Park, Rob Chell and Warren Brown.

Finally, my family. Mum, I love you so much and draw such strength from your amazing courage. I hope you enjoy this book, but please don’t get too upset about some of my earlier
behaviour
. Phil, thanks for being a great father figure and role model throughout my teenage years and early twenties. Dad, may your recovery from illness continue and I’m glad I know you in some way today.

My brother and sister, Paul and Liza, remain enormously close and important to me, and I love you both and your families beyond belief. And finally, Nan, I love you with all my heart and I cherish each day I spend with you.

The most important person in the world to me, the man who saved my life, is my darling husband Thomas. I love you.

I wish the men of the Household Cavalry the very best of luck for the future.

D
oncaster, the horse entrusted to carry me on this great
occasion
, looks up. I want to look up, too, but I know it’s more than my job’s worth. Everywhere around me thousands of people are waiting for a glimpse of the newlyweds – even me, the lucky boy who has the honour of taking part in their big day. This is the event of the year (of several years): the royal wedding, the wedding of a future king. Millions of people on the streets and around the world are focusing on this very moment and I can’t help but fantasise that they’re looking at me!

I am turned out immaculately, my boots polished to within an inch of their lives, my scarlet red plume hanging beautifully off the top of my helmet, the strands waving past my eyes in the slight breeze. Doncaster and I have been checked and re-checked throughout the morning, yet I’m still nervous. This day is the highlight of my life – a day I never thought I’d see.

I say this because it has been a long journey – a journey that could have ended several times.

Waiting for the prince and his new wife, the now Duchess of Cambridge, seems to last a lifetime. I’ve been sat patiently, still as possible, for almost an hour, listening to the words of the Archbishop from inside the abbey through the large speakers assembled outside for the world to listen; listening to the cheers
of support from all over the capital. What did my family make of it all? What about the school kids who’d often put me down as a child? What about the teachers who had spent so much time and energy on my education? Were they watching? Had they seen what had become of that young boy from North Wales, sat in full state regalia atop a beautiful large black horse?

Another hymn begins inside the abbey – and outside too – led by the very lady I’m sat here waiting for: Her Majesty. She is my one concern, the one person I am here to look after.

My sword arm begins to ache as Doncaster entertains himself with the apparatus in his mouth, rattling and jingling. I’m desperate to look around. I wonder whether the nice American family I spoke with yesterday during rehearsals are enjoying the occasion. They’d told me how supportive they were of the two princes and how they’d last travelled to the UK to see ‘the funeral in 1997’. My memory drifts back to that occasion and the sorrow that filled our household following her death. An innocent
ten-year
-old boy sat with his mother and older sister, witnessing the events with confusion and sadness.

In the space of fifteen years I’ve come from the Welsh
countryside
to the heart of royal pageantry in London at the wedding of one of those two young boys the world cried over. I feel my own eyes dampen slightly and quickly pull myself together: this next hour is the pinnacle of my military career and I need to fully concentrate. I need to ride with certainty and
commitment
; getting here wasn’t easy and I know that today will be the beginning of the end of my incredible journey as a soldier in the British Army.

I
was born into a large English family in 1987, in a hospital bed in North Wales – the first Welshman of the family. Both my parents were from Liverpool and had met there some years before, in the late 1970s.

Both my brother and sister, Paul and Liza, were older than me by quite a gap – my sister is ten years my senior – and they had a different father to me. I was quite the baby of the family – in many ways I still am!

Our large family, the Crumlins, was formed during the First World War when two men met before the Battle of the Somme. It was the lull before the battle and, in the face of a challenge that they knew would cost the lives of thousands, the two shared a cigarette and a conversation. After weeks and weeks of bloody fighting, by chance, the two men met again at the end of the battle and became friends, tied forever by the experience they’d both shared. The men kept in touch throughout the remaining months and years of the war, and then into peacetime. One of the men, from Belfast, brought his wife and young son with him on trips to Liverpool, where they’d stay with the other man, his wife and young daughter. The two children, Gladys and James (‘Jimmy’), became my grandparents.

Jimmy, my granddad, went on to join the Royal Navy and
spent most of the Second World War as a Japanese prisoner of war after his ship, the
Repulse
, was sunk in 1941. He survived, and he and my nan had many children and eventually grandchildren.

Jimmy was a huge influence on my early life. I was always fascinated with his medals and although he rarely spoke of his days in the POW camp, the family – my nan, mostly – would pass on enough for me to understand that he had suffered for all our futures.

From what I can remember, my parents, Pauline and Ronald, lived a somewhat turbulent life in North Wales while I was
growing
up. Dad worked in a factory but was also a window cleaner. He’d often drink his daily earnings before getting home. Mum was a saleswoman at a kitchen and bathroom hardware shop in the local town. Mum would come home at 5.30 every night to a sometimes already drunk Dad, two teenagers and a very young and energetic me. They did well and I know they only stayed together because of how young I was, but they decided to call it a day once I’d reached my teens.

Enter Phil, my stepfather. Phil met my mother as she was leaving my dad and he really swept her off her feet. Around this time, Mum was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). Fairly stressful times for one lady, I think. What Phil provided for us all was security, care and most of all for my mum, love, something that had probably been missing from her life for some time. I honestly don’t know what might have happened to Mum if Phil hadn’t come along. He’s a very good guy, and I’m glad he turned up when he did.

Mum and I left our house, which was a very pretty property on the side of a rural Welsh hillside. We moved into a two-bedroom council flat in an area of the village that I simply saw as rough. Things were going to be very different. I felt embarrassed that my life had taken such a sudden change. My sister had already moved
out with her young family, and my brother Paul used the change in our family make-up as an excuse to start out on his own too. I was now solely alone with Mum. Phil, of course, became more involved as the months passed by, and as a result I bonded with him a lot sooner than Paul and Liza did.

After the break-up my dad took a turn for the worse. He walked out of his factory job, which meant he had to depend solely on his window-cleaning round; he started hitting the bottle more than he’d ever done before in his life. He attempted to take on our old house alone, buying Mum out, but it ended in failure and the property was eventually repossessed. This added to his many stresses, which he kept all to himself. He always had done. Soon he was living in a squat and I would visit him after school most days, often finding him drunk.

While I could, I tried to keep him on the relative straight and narrow. With the help of my school, Liza and I even got him into rehab, but after his second stint he returned to the bottle yet again. Thinking about the dad I knew when I was much younger, a very playful, decent, all-round dad, and then comparing him to what he became while I was in my teenage years fills me with sadness. You’d think it’d be enough to put me off drinking.

In early 2000, I saw a poster in school about the Army Cadet Force, which was opening a new club in the local village. Most of the boys poked fun at the idea, but it really appealed to me. With the many changes going on at home and the problems I was having with Dad, I saw the cadets as a chance of escape. I went along to the opening night with my best friend Ami and we both signed up.

During my time in the army cadets I made lots of new friends from around the region, which stretched from the Welsh border with England and Cheshire to the coastal towns of Colwyn Bay and Abergele. Our group, aged thirteen to seventeen, mixed very
well and would unite most weekends throughout the spring and summer. It might be a little unfair to say, but I felt like we were a collective group of slight misfits. We weren’t the cool kids you found commanding the playgrounds in school. We didn’t do the whole hanging around street corners thing; instead, come the weekend, we’d get together at a campsite somewhere and really let our hair down, at the same time learning all about military discipline and structure. On reflection, I can see how much of a winning recruitment tool it was for the regular army.

The trick was to get involved with as many sports and
activities
as possible, thus ensuring the best chance of going away most weekends. Escape. My friends in the cadets and I took part in as much as possible. In the summer of 2002, I managed to go away an incredible twelve weekends in a row, driving my headmaster Mr Davies up the wall as I needed most Friday afternoons off school to be able to do so. I competed in athletics, becoming the junior Welsh high jump champion; I was part of the shooting team, which got me away for at least four weekends in a row; I competed in endurance, which was the most prestigious
activity
to be involved with, long-distance marching over hills and mountains while trying to navigate. This is what I excelled in – and it made me very popular among the other cadets.

I also played the side drum in the massed band, which got me away for the remaining weekends of the summer months. It was quite a glamorous role and I mostly played before
kick-off
at Wrexham FC home games. The boys from school sat in the crowd looking on with interest but would still ridicule me the following Monday for looking ‘gay’ in my uniform banging a drum.

I’d become quite thick-skinned against schoolyard teasing. I’d always been picked on for having a slight Liverpudlian accent. My dad wandering around the village with ladders and a bucket
didn’t help too much, either. It was worse when he became a drunk. I remember thinking Dad had become the village idiot, the one everyone could poke fun at – and often through me in the playground.

It was during these weekends of escape that I became friendly with a boy from the coast called Aaron, who was the same age as me. The seaside was about as glamorous as it got in North Wales when you were that age and I remember being a little jealous that he seemed to be constantly on holiday, living by the beach.

It’s one of nature’s greatest secrets: why do people attract? What draws them together? For Aaron and me, at the age of fourteen, we didn’t know but we really liked each other. Neither of us fully understood what was going on but we’d drink Pepsi and eat crisps on a Saturday night and then dash around trying to catch and then tickle the other. We’d go swimming and end up chasing each other around the swimming pool; splashing water and trying to pull each other’s shorts down. It felt completely natural to behave like this. I still had Dad and his problems on my mind, and was always ready for my mobile phone to ring to be told he was dead or something. When I was with Aaron, I could relax. When we fooled around together everything else seemed to disappear. I knew what I was experiencing with him was more than just a normal friendship between teenagers. This was unique. There was a physical attraction between us and I worried that I fancied Aaron. Fancying Aaron would make me gay. I didn’t want to be gay. Being gay was unheard of in our family.

Years later, when I was twenty-one, we bumped into each other in Soho. Aaron was, like me, ‘out’, and living life to the fullest. I was pleased he had managed to break out of his North Wales town. We spoke for hours and he told me he’d come out not long after our summer friendship. He’d realised he was gay and had accepted it a lot sooner than me.

Before I joined the army cadets, I had very few friends. Most youngsters in my area were causing trouble and having run-ins with the local police. I didn’t want to get involved with that. The army cadets came along and allowed me to mix and get out there. I honestly don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully repay what I feel I owe to the organisation; I’d recommend it to anybody.

Most of the boys I became friends with during this time were a little older than me and, by being the kid in the group, I learned about the world through their words and actions. They were much more developed than me and were exploring their teenage feelings. Although I didn’t quite understand it then, now I know it was my sexuality that attracted me to them. As soon as they all hit sixteen, they left to join the army. It was an exciting time for them, but a bit of a sad one for me – I still had twelve to eighteen months of waiting before I could do the same. The instant I could, I walked through the door of the army careers office in Wrexham, and my course in life was set.