Tour de force

AT first glance, it's like a wedding reception.

Sons and daughters, mums and dads and granddads and grannies sit round rows of tables. Some clutch cans of Carling, others have orange squash in paper cups. All look at watches.

A buffet sits, shrivelling, on a long table. Plastic shiny banners line the large hall. "Congratulations", they say. Helium balloons blare the same message. There is a restless murmur, like an audience before a play. A boy has drawn his own sign, crepe paper tassels stuck to the tea towel: "Welcome home, Mummy," it says.

It's 7.45pm, but the 201 Field Hospital was due back at 7.30pm. They've been away since September: three months, three weeks, one day. And counting.

Then a girl runs in, beaming like she's seen Santa Claus. "They're here!" she says. "I've seen them get off the coach!"

The murmur gets loud. People dash to the front of the hall, waiting, jostling. Eventually, the door opens and a line of men and women, clad in desert camouflage, file in. The hall bursts into applause, the troops wave bashfully. Dozens of digital cameras flash, lads peering over the big ones in front.

Sons and daughters get wet eyes. Grannies had them anyway. They set off the returning troops, who wipe away tears with camouflage sleeves.

Everyone finds a private square yard to embrace.

They've been waiting four months. The journalists - and there are plenty - stand at the side, no one to hug, like gooseberries with notepads.

After the embrace, the conversations begin.

Everyone beams. Television crews hook reunited couples in front of cameras, under bright, white lights. Back home, but not yet back to normal.

The 201 Field Hospital left their North-East homes on September 28, and, after training, went to Afghanistan on October 12. Sgt Major Ian Wishart, from Scotton, near Richmond, was among them. His wife, Nancy, is used to it. They've been together for 26 years, and Ian, before joining the TA, was in the regular Army for 22 years. His longest stint from home, in the first Gulf War, was seven months.

"It's a lonely experience," says Nancy. "You have to learn to cope, as you know they're going to come home safe and sound. I just pray to God every day he'll be well. And now he's back, I'm so proud."

The 201 Field Hospital - who treated injured British and Afghan soldiers, and Afghan civilians - were not on the front line. But when there have been 87 British deaths in the Afghan War, it doesn't stop families worrying.

"The television news is horrendous," says Nancy, who runs The Beauty Salon in King Street, Richmond.

"You try not to watch it, even though you're intrigued. You want to know, yet you don't want to, because there's so much bad news."

AND, of course, there is no one to share problems with. While troops fight in far-flung fields, their families fight smaller battles, alone, every day. Broken washing machines, crashed cars, parents' evening.

"It's like being a single parent," says Nancy. "But once you marry a soldier, you know it's going to come. I know he's behind me, even if he's not there.

We send letters, emails, and there is good access to telephones. It helps having the salon, too. I tell my customers about what's going on. I don't think there's a person in Richmond who doesn't know all about it."

Iain Copland, from Brompton on Swale, near Richmond, was a soldier until 2001. When he left the Army, his wife, Fiona, joined the TA. "I had to keep it in the family," she says. The Afghanistan tour was her first. Iain, finally, knows how it feels.

"It has been strange, being the one at home," he says. "Because you know what they are doing, and the environment, it's maybe not quite the same culture shock that other families have. On the other hand, because you do know, it can be harder."

In the hall, sons and daughters nestle under the returning heroes' arms. Pride bounces off the walls, and fills the room. The cameras flash on the troops' faces, but the families, too, have just finished their tour of duty.

Cpt Steve Powell, from the TA's permanent staff in Newcastle, says supporting troops' families is vital. After 33 years in the Army, he should know.

"Before they go, troops provide us with a list of who to ring and when best to ring," he says. "We phone once a week, telling them what's happened this week, asking if we can do anything for them.

Often they just ask when they're coming home.

Sometimes people just want to talk, have a moan - because they haven't had a husband to moan at for months on end."

THE transformation in communications has helped, too. "Even when we went to Iraq, the communications were very hit and miss. But now they have the internet, phone calls - they can phone every day if they want. It's a lot easier now than it used to be."

Even the football clubs help. Newcastle, Sunderland and Darlington all provide tickets for the troops' families. "It's fantastic they do that," Cpt Powell says. "Fantastic they remember those at home, while the focus can be on those away."

Before the reunited families leave the hall, Col Ian Goulbourne gives a speech. The hall is quiet for the first time since the camouflage entered. "It has been a tremendous welcome from friends and family," he says. "It's wonderful to see the power behind the hospital. I can see now why we did so well.

They make me extremely proud. I just hope you are as proud of our men and women as I am today."

As the beaming, red-eyed, reunited families drift to the car park, it's safe to say they are.