Page 18 - Yearbook issue try out

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Bayonets, Bearskins
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After 25 years of service to Queen and country in the Coldstream Guards,
Alan O’Connor joined WCIT as our Beadle. KIMBALL BAILEY talks to him

about life, luck and tradition

LAN O’Connor always wanted to join the
Army. More than that, to enlist in an elite
Ainfantry regiment. He wanted to see the
world and experience action. Great ambitions. Over
a quarter of a century he got plenty of both.

His choice was narrow. Beret or bearskin? Paras or
Guards? So why the Coldstreams?

“I’ve always respected tradition,” says Alan.
“I always got a thrill watching Trooping the
Colour, and I still do. You don’t see the Paras at
Horseguards! The Coldstreams are iconic: the
oldest regiment in the British Army, dating back
to 1650. Maybe that’s why I think I now fit so
comfortably into the City.”

His list of tours is outstanding: Operation Desert
Storm in the Gulf in 1990, his first year in the Army,
then Northern Ireland, Afghanistan (twice), Iraq
(twice), and three times with NATO forces in Bosnia
and Kosovo, each tour being six or seven months, Alan: “and I’m not being shot at”
plus extensive deployment training and planning.
he turned out to be British – and he had an Aston
“And then the humanitarian work, like after Villa tattoo.”
Hurricane Keith hit Belize,” he adds, “for which
the Queen presented the Company with the Alan’s last operational tour, in 2010 to Afghanistan,
Wilkinson Sword of Peace.” Enough experience for was as intelligence officer for the area. What does
ten lifetimes. “Not all of our allies were really up to he remember the most about that last tour?
scratch,” he says. “And a real problem with many of
the tours is you didn’t know who your enemies – or “The stink,” he says bluntly. “Death stinks. You
friends – really were.” become immune to it after a while, but you cannot
unsmell it. But I have been incredibly lucky – 25
So just two weeks after Alan left Kabul, some of the years and not a mark on me. And I’d go back in a
Afghan National Army troops turned on his unit’s heartbeat.”
replacements. “Killed them in bed,” he says, still
clearly moved. Alan also talks about his role as Company
Quartermaster Sergeant, when he had
But there were lighter moments. “I remember responsibility for welfare, including rehabilitation
one Taliban prisoner – the interpreter couldn’t for the increasing number of casualties coming
understand him,” Alan explains. “This was because home.
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