Emily Parker spoke with Brenda Hale about the day she found out her husband had died in Afghanistan, how she survived the shock and grief, and her life in politics since then.

Brenda Hale

Emily: Brenda, first of all, tell me about you and Mark, how you met him and what it was like when you met him for the first time.

Brenda: You have to imagine Northern Ireland at the height of the troubles. It's the mid-80's; I was a 16 year old, blatantly disobeying my parents by going to an over 18 club. I met a very tall, gangly boy soldier, who was 17 years old, from Bournemouth. He was based with his regiment The Devon and Dorset's in Ballykinler.

It was a cold January night and the minute I saw him, I just see these piercing green eyes that looked at me across the room. I thought "Ooh, I think I like you." I knew he was a soldier, so I had to dislike him, because my parents would have had a fit if they thought for one moment that I was involved with British soldiers.

Emily: As you started to get to know Mark, you found out about the line of work he was in. Did that encourage your feelings, or did that make you feel hesitant?

Brenda: I was a little hesitant, because I knew my parents were very aware of the security situation. It wasn't the fact that girls got a bad name if they went with soldiers, it was to do with security. I was putting my family's life at risk and we were going to make ourselves potentially a target for Republican terrorists. So I was very aware of that.

But as I got to know Mark and he was coming down every week, I think my hormones kicked in, and then later my heart. When you're a teenage girl and those hormones are going, any parent will tell you, any teenage girl will tell you, it's very hard to ignore.

Emily: So you started going out, and eventually got married. What was the start of married life like for you?

Brenda: It was completely different to what I expected. I was meant to go to university and I threw all that up in the air to marry Mark, at the age of 19. I literally finished college on a Friday, packed my wedding dress, and the few bits 'n' bobs I had at home and I moved to Dorset where I was going to be married.

I married Mark six weeks later. He was at home for three days after the wedding and then he went to the Falkland Islands. I found myself, a young Northern Irish girl, living with my in-laws in Dorset, while my husband was 5,000 miles away.

That sort of laid down the pattern for married life within the army. It was a pattern that I had to adapt to if our marriage was to survive, and I actually came to enjoy it.

The early days of marriage were not what I expected, because I was married and on my own. Mark didn't return from the Falklands until the November, and we had got married in the previous July. So we went on honeymoon and then we had a few days together as newly-weds.

Emily: When Mark came back from various tours, what was the most amount of time that you spent together?

Brenda: It would depend on the posting of where he was with his regiment. They tended to be posted away to Northern Ireland for six months, Bosnia for six months, Iraq for six months, and Kosovo for six months. So we had that cycle.

He'd be away for six months, but prior to the six months would be a three or four month training period. So you would take out a whole year due to that posting, but when he was home, he was really home. During that time he was a full-on, hands-on father and husband. We had to balance when he was away, cos he was definitely away; it wasn't like he was coming home at night; we weren't going to see him for months at a time. But when he was home, he really engaged and we were a very tight knit family unit.