Leighann McCready is haunted by memories of the three fleeting years her daughter spent in the Army.
Fresh from finishing her GCSEs, not yet old enough to drive or to vote, Jaysley Beck was 16 when she left the family home in an idyllic corner of the Lake District and began her military career at the Army Foundation College in Harrogate, North Yorkshire.
Leighann remembers all too well the maelstrom of her own emotions – the terror, trepidation and, above all, the overwhelming pride – as Jaysley, her youngest daughter, whose petite stature belied her inner steel, prepared to fly the nest.
As proud as she was, Leighann, a 46-year-old former Marie Curie nurse, couldn't bring herself to sign the necessary paperwork, instead leaving that job to her partner, Jaysley's dad, Anthony Beck.
She recalls: 'I just said, "I can't do it love, I just can't." I said, "What if something ever happens to you?"
