'Seeing four motorway lanes of bodies sticks in your mind'

Colin Taylor reflects on life on the front line.

But since he witnessed the horrors of the first Gulf War, Colin has found himself prone to snapping in a fury when he grows frustrated, even with those he loves most.

For 19 years he had no real understanding of why he would boil over so dramatically when he was under pressure. Then a friend suggested he visit the Mark Wright Project Centre, and he realised after two decades that he had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD.

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Colin, 48, was a lance corporal in the 4th Royal Tank Regiment, seconded to the 14th/20th King's Hussars, when he arrived in the Gulf just before Christmas 1990.

The Gorebridge man - who is backing our campaign to save the centre - drove an ammunition truck to supply tanks on the front line, and recalls: "We waited for a gap opening up, so you were watching tank shells and machine gun bullets whizzing past. You just get on with it - there's no sense in being scared."

That ordeal was nothing compared to the human toll he witnessed on the ground. He says: "There were a couple of bodies that we came across that had been killed by their own side, with placards round their neck. One guy had his head run over, the other had been shot in the back of the head."

Perhaps the worst sight was the Basra Road, where, just days earlier, thousands of Iraqi army vehicles had been penned in and bombed by American forces, leaving hundreds dead.

He says: "All these Saudis and Kuwaitis were spitting at the bodies, kicking them, shouting abuse. To see what was four lanes of motorway for almost a mile, littered with nothing but burned out vehicles and bodies, that sticks in your mind."

Just days after encountering the Basra Road, he confronted his 18-year-old co-driver about the disappearance of chocolates, sweets and matches from his ration pack. The youngster admitted to taking the items and then lying about it, and as Colin walked away, swore at him.

He recalls what happened next quite calmly. "I just turned and grabbed him round the throat and held him up the side of the lorry and left him dangling in the air. It took four of them to pull me off him and I left my hand print on his neck, he was turning blue.

"I've nearly done the same to my kids, because you just snap," he says.

His family, who he clearly loves dearly, are wife Valerie and their twin daughters, Robyn and Hazel, 18. For years, they were the only ones coping with Colin's mood swings. Then, a colleague on the recycling team at Midlothian Council suggested he visit the Mark Wright Project Centre.

He met with a therapist, and for the first time realised that he was suffering from after-effects of trauma.

He says: "I'm coping with it better. You can go in and talk, you've got some place to socialise, and there's no pressure.

"It's quietened me down. The kids, if they've got any problems, know better how to approach it. If I've got problems I try to work them out."

The project has helped the whole family deal with Colin's PTSD, but he worries that a whole generation is coming out of the services without support.

He says: "More should be done for squaddies coming out, to have somebody sit down and listen and try to help."