Retired Royal Navy Commander – founding trustee at Fighting With Pride – Memorial Officer
I was born in Nottingham in 1958 and grew up in Leicester. Growing up I was a pupil at St Joseph’s RC primary school and City Of Leicester Boys Grammar School. Having failed my initial Admiralty Interview Board to join the Royal Navy at age 17 I was advised to get some life experience so instead of starting university, I spent a year in Canada traveling, lumber-jacking and working on a farm in Nova Scotia. On return to UK I worked as a kitchen porter, and aced the subsequent AIB 18 months after the first one. I joined BRNC Dartmouth as a Full Career Commission Midshipman in 1978.
I spent 5 terms (18 months or so) at Dartmouth. This included time at sea in HMS HERMES which was the stand-in Dartmouth Training Ship as both LPDs (the designated training ships) were late out of refit. I passed out at Lord High Admiral’s Divisions (inspected by HM Queen Elizabeth II) in Spring 1980 and in my first full appointment in LEEDS CASTLE I saw action in the Falklands conflict in 1982.
Subsequent appointments/assignments included HMS GLAMORGAN (OOW); HMS ARIADNE and CHARYBDIS (FNO); HMS BLACKWATER (CO at age 26 – the youngest Commanding Officer in the RN last the time). I qualified as PWO(A) in 1988 and subsequent sea-going appointments were HMS CHATHAM (PWO(A)); HMS CORNWALL (SWO(A)); HMS LANCASTER (XO); FOST (SXO). On promotion to Commander in 1998 I was appointed to Navy Ops at Northwood HQ as Staff Plans Officer – operations I led there included the amphibious landing into Sierra Leone and initial planning for the Bosnia-Serbia conflict. I was subsequently the Middle East desk officer in MoD covering N Africa and was also the defence attaché for Tunisia and Algeria.
From MoD I moved to the British Embassy in Washington DC for 4 years as the Naval Intelligence Liaison Officer, returning in 2007 to DIS as Assistant Director Ops in Navy Intelligence and subsequently as Senior Duty Officer in the DI SitCen. On completion of my regular service in 2012, I was recalled to service to be Fleet Security Officer back in Navy Ops at Northwood, on a Full Time Reserve Service contract. This included regular global travel in direct support to operations. I finally retired in Dec 2024 after 46 years of service.
During my career I saw service under the ban on LGBT+ military service which was a considerable strain for 20+ years, but I was fortunate in “getting away with it” for the first half of my career. The lifting of the ban in Jan 2000 was a significant milestone, although for me the watershed moment was leading the first RN contingent to march in London Gay Pride in uniform in 2006 (a global first). Although it took another 2 years before all 3 services marched in uniform at London Pride, conditions of service improved exponentially from then onwards and UK armed forces became recognised as exemplars of diverse employers, frequently in the top 100 employers in the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index.
In 2020, I was asked by Craig Jones and others to write about my experience of serving under the ban on LGBT+ military service, which was published in the book, “Fighting With Pride”. During the process of writing the book, the lack of support for veterans who were so very badly disadvantaged by the ban became apparent and we established Fighting With Pride – the LGBT+ Military Charity in Jan 2020. In the five years since then, the charity has made remarkable progress, including commissioning formal research into the impact of the ban on LGBT+ Veterans and persuading the Government to establish an independent review into the (mis)treatment of LGBT+ Veterans under the ban (the Etherton Review).
Lord Etherton’s review resulted in a formal apology by the PM for the mistreatment of LGBT+ Veterans in the House of Commons, many non-financial reparations including the return of medals and the restoration of rank and commissions, as well as a financial recognition scheme providing a degree of financial reparation to those who served under ban. The Government has also funded a national LGBT+ Armed Forces Community Memorial, the project for which I am leading, with a completion date scheduled for Oct 2025 at the National Memorial Arboretum.
