Pictures from my school friend and Territorial Army buddy's graduation, from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. December 2005.

I've known Mark since I was 4 years old at primary school, we were in the same class until the age of 11, when we went our separate ways to secondary school. Some 7 years later in 1998, when I had been in the Territorial Army in Surrey for a few months, I recognised the person sat behind me. Of course as soon as I heard the surname I knew exactly who it was. Our TA unit in Cobham was really good, and was a small unit of around 30 people so we all knew each other very well, and paraded every Thursday and most weekends together. There were lots of other people around 18/19 years old and we'd all go out as a platoon on a Friday night, and to parties. It was the best times that any of us had ever had, and even in the freezing cold of Wales in January we'd have a great time. We went on exercise almost every weekend, and volunteered for any extra training that we could do whilst skipping A-level revision from school.

Most of us had plans of joining the regular army and attending Sandhurst for officer training, in the end only Patrick Tame, Richard Booker and Mark did, and the story is too long to tell here; but I went to University after spending some time with the Grenadier Guards on attachment, Patrick joined the Light Infantry as a 2nd Lieutenant and Mark enlisted as a private soldier in PWRR, rising to the rank of Corporal and did 2 tours of Kosovo and earned himself a NATO medal and bar. After 5 years as a soldier Mark was selected for officer training, a very rare event, and around 12-15 soldiers a year in the whole British Army are selected in this way. Patrick and I who have now left all ties with the army, took the day off work and went to take pictures and congratulate our buddy. It was really easy for me to pick Mark out, as he was one of very few people on parade with a medal. Mark's girlfriend Kate was in the term behind Mark in the same company as "sick note" Harry Wales, who was also on parade that day, although I am a staunch monarchist I had no interest in trying to take a photo of him.

1998

2005