200 days and 3,500 miles apart

A Peterborough woman's been telling Heart how she and a group of other RAF wives and girlfriends kept themselves going when their partners were in Afghanistan - by writing poems.

Members of the group started posting them on an internet forum whilst 27th Squadron RAF Regiment were on their recent six month tour of duty - and they have just published them in an anthology to raise money for charity.

"Whatever you were feeling, you could write it down in some form," says Nic, whose husband returned to RAF Honington at the beginning of February.

"There's a real range of emotions - from funny ones about finding spiders on the war, there's a poem about one wife's little girl getting herself covered in sudocrem.

But there's also sad ones about the news and what you see on it, or about being a mum and what it's like to see your son going off to war."

The book's called '200 Days 3,500 miles'.

It is Nic's husband's sixth tour of duty - she says it is always a tough time:

"You have to deal with it. You can't sit in the house moping around waiting for that phone call - because you can guarantee as soon as you go out the phone will ring anyway, so you might as well get on with your life.

You can't watch the news...but you can't just sit waiting."

All profits from the book will go to the RAF Benevolent Fund, Help for Heroes and the RAF Regiment Fund. You can buy one online by going to www.rafbf.org.

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