The Military Wives: Wherever You Are – Paula’s Story
This is Paula’s story, one of four individual journeys taken from Wherever You Are by The Military Wives.Paula and James Mundy first met when they were teenagers, little knowing they’d end up spending the rest of their lives together. After James had completed his marine training they met again, became inseparable, and before long had moved into married quarters.But life as a military wife would be particularly hard for Paula. With James posted overseas, she was left to cope with the mental and physical disabilities of their daughter Rhianna, had full responsibility for her elder brother and younger sister, and in 2011 she was left reeling when her mother was diagnosed with cancer.When Paula began singing with her local choir, she realised she had an outlet for the first time; a way to switch off. In the dozens of other wives, each with their own hardships to overcome, she found a support network; through the darkest times, the choir was there.Mere months later, the Military Wives choir would have performed for the Queen, recorded a bestselling album and achieved a Christmas number 1.This is one woman’s true story of heartbreak, love and loss, and of how singing kept hope alive.Sales of this book will benefit the Military Wives Choirs Foundation, a network of choirs that reaches across the military community to provide support, guidance and funding for individual choirs, but first and foremost to bring women closer together through singing. The Foundation is a registered subsidiary charity of SSAFA Forces Help.
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WORDS WE USE
We use words and phrases that we pick up from our men – military terms and slang that you may not understand. Here’s an explanation of the ones in this book:
FOB Forward Operating Base: a secured position away from the main base
R & R Rest and recreation: the break, usually two weeks, the men get in order to come home in the middle of a long tour
I first met James when he was 16 and I was nearly 18, and his boss. He was studying for A-levels and working part time as a carer in a nursing home where I was a senior carer. We hit it off and became friends, but not romantically. I married my first husband and had my son Josh, but we broke up when Josh was only five months old.
I didn’t see James for a couple of years and by then he’d gone away to train as a marine. My brother was going out with James’s sister, and they asked me if I’d like to meet up with him. ‘Brilliant,’ I said, and as soon as I saw him we both knew it was special. I did think: What am I letting myself in for? – because I knew nothing about military life – but I realised I’d never truly been in love before. I used to get butterflies just hearing him on the phone. I’d be lying in bed with the phone and then while chatting to him I’d think: This is proper love. This is how it should be.
He came to my nan’s birthday, and he produced a single rose with a little box and asked me to marry him in front of everyone. I said, ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ I was very excited. There was a little bit of me that wondered if I should get married again. But if you want to live in forces accommodation you have to be married. The ring was a diamond solitaire, which cost him £200 at a time when he was only earning £600 a month. I love it, but I love it most for what it represents, which is our love.
I was so proud of him at his passing-out parade. I came down from Nottinghamshire with my mum and his mum, and I got changed and put my make-up on at the services on the M5. Then he was posted to Scotland, and I was sending money so that he could afford to come down and see me and Josh. We were trying to save for our wedding, and at first we thought we’d have a long engagement. But we just couldn’t do it: we wanted to be together all the time.
By the time we married, James had been posted to Taunton. I loved our first married quarter. I’d have lived in a garden shed and been happy: I was so thrilled to set up a home with him. The neighbours were lovely, and even though I had been nervous about leaving my job, my family and my friends, we were so happy. I can make friends easily: I can talk the hind legs off a donkey. Our world was perfect.
Because I already had my son Josh when we married, we thought if we had a child early together, the age gap would not be too great. I became pregnant, but I was poorly right through the pregnancy and had loads of tests. First of all the doctors thought something was wrong, but then a scan said she was a perfectly normal baby.
I had to have an emergency Caesarean but I was awake and I remember joking with the surgeon: ‘Will you do a tummy tuck while you’re at it?’
But the atmosphere in the delivery room changed suddenly and I saw a look of sheer horror on the doctor’s face. That was the moment everything changed for us. The baby was taken away to an incubator, and the next time I saw her she had a lot of tubes coming out of her.
To cut a long story short, Rhianna was born with a lot of disabilities, caused by a chromosomal abnormality. We were told that there is no other case in the world exactly like Rhianna’s, and we were warned that she might never walk or talk. It was a very stressful time. James and I would stay up late into the night, talking about how we would cope.
We said, ‘What will be, will be. She’s still our daughter.’
Shortly after we brought her home from hospital, we had to move from Taunton to new quarters in Reading. I sat with my baby surrounded by loads of packing cases. The day we moved, she started having fits, and we didn’t even know where the hospital was. There were so many problems, but James remained so calm. He’s been really great with her all the way through, and she loves her daddy. But right then I wanted him to show some emotion. We were told she would not have any quality of life; she would be a ‘vegetable’, which is a word I hate. I didn’t want him to cry his eyes out, but I remember saying, ‘It’s all right for you. You’ve still got your career. You can go away. It’s me that will have to stay here with her.’
It was brutal, what I said, and I took it all back later and apologised. Now I know that him staying calm is a godsend. It’s helped me get through so many crises with her.
Eighteen months later we moved to Lympstone. Every time we moved I had to make contact with different hospitals, different consultants. I knew Rhianna had severe physical and mental problems that could never be changed, but I wanted to help her in any way that I could, so I made up my mind to get her walking. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the church when she toddled down the aisle as a bridesmaid to my brother.
