Saturday marked the 10th anniversary of the end of Britain’s war in Afghanistan – a conflict in which 457 British men and women were killed. BBC News spoke to the mother of Pte Gregg Stone, who was shot dead in Helmand Province in June 2012.
Cry for yourself my man
You will never be what is in your heart
Cry lion man
You are not as brave as you were in the beginning.
“I had to fight back tears when I heard that song on the car radio yesterday,” said Angie Moore.
His son Gregg Stone, 20, served at Mumford & Sons, he explains. And the 2009 hit, Little Lion Man, was a favorite.
Gregg’s sister, Jennie, had booked tickets to see them in concert when she came home on leave from Helmand Province.
No one saw the band. Gregg wouldn’t hold his daughter either.
On 3 June 2012, Gregg, of the 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, was shot and killed while trying to free an Afghan policeman who had been held hostage by the Taliban.
At the time of his death, his wife and childhood sweetheart, Samantha, were expecting their first child.
While the family struggled to come to terms with the loss of Gregg, they endured further grief when Jennie, 28, a mother of one, died in a car crash near Bridlington, East Yorkshire, on 18 February 2013.
Ms Moore, 68, is searching for words to take in the weight of the loss.
“It was a nightmare to lose Gregg, but to lose Jennie eight months later, it was…unbelievable,” he said.
“Every morning I woke up and thought I was dreaming. Things will change today. But things have never been different. It was a bad dream and some days it still is.
“I still wear this mask. Some days it fits better than others. The record will come out and I’ll think about them.
“There are all kinds of flashbacks. Pictures. When I go places, I remember Jennie doing this, Gregg doing that. But luckily most of them are happy memories.”
Mrs Moore brought up Gregg, Jennie and her four other children in Atwick, near the East Yorkshire seaside town of Hornea, where Gregg’s name is inscribed on a war memorial.
He feels that Afghanistan is being forgotten.
“People don’t remember,” said Ms. Moore. “The world forgets.”
He now lives near Scarborough, but still has a view of the North Sea.
Outside there is a bench dedicated to “Jennie Wren” – the name of her daughter’s family pet – where Mrs Moore often sits to reflect and let memories of happy times come flooding back.
In the house hang Pte Stone’s Army dog tags – the discs he was wearing when he died.
His Afghanistan medals and photos sit on a cabinet, with a picture of a wren adorning the wall.
“Afghanistan changed us,” Ms Moore admitted. “We all became different people. Me especially. I became empty. I was incomplete. Like there was a part of me that was missing.
“It caused some tension. Some of it has been fixed, some of it hasn’t. I think we like to be critical of some things but we all changed when we lost Gregg and Jennie.
“We’re throwing it away and there’s always going to be a part missing. It’s never going to end.”
Ten years ago, when Britain’s end of the war was announced, a BBC poll found that 68% of respondents thought involvement was not important.
In August 2021, the Taliban regained control of the country after the US announced the final withdrawal of troops.
Ms Moore listens to those who criticize the deployment of British troops in Afghanistan.
But he says: “Gregg sent me an email from Shaparak [a checkpoint in Nahr-e Saraj].
“He said, ‘Mom, if someone tells you that we shouldn’t be here, don’t pay attention.
“Gregg told me those people were living a terrible life. ‘We’re doing good’, he told me. That was coming from the horse’s mouth, so I’m not going to let anyone tell me we shouldn’t be there.”
Mrs Moore looks at the clock on the wall, which shows a picture of her son in uniform resting on top of a union flag. It is the same picture that was released when he died.
“What makes me sad is that people say it was a waste of time,” he said. “That is like saying that my son died in vain, it was a waste of time to take away his life.
“It’s not a waste of time. Maybe things went backwards and they’re not much better. But, for a time, they were. For a time, they made progress.
“My son’s life was by no means a waste. He knows what he is doing. He knows why he is there.”
The clock shows 11:00. Greg puts on a stern face.
“That’s not really Gregg,” said Mrs Moore, laughing. “It’s the only picture of Gregg I’ve seen where he’s not smiling.”
“It was a picture of death”, he explains.
“All soldiers, before they are sent, are photographed, in case they die.”
Mrs Moore says her son was “ridiculous”.
“He was my laughing boy,” she said. “He always smiled, he joked about everything, he found fun in everything, he liked to make people happy, he was annoying.
“But he was a funny, sensitive guy. Very mature in a lot of ways. Very, very immature in a lot of other ways. He was a good kid and he became a really good man.”
And he was going to be a great father, his mother said.
“Gregg was looking forward to being a father. That’s all he would talk about when he was out [in Afghanistan]. He told everyone.”
Dealing with his loss has been difficult.
“You pass because you have to pass,” he said looking at the sea.
“You don’t get a choice. You have to deal with your whole family, and your mind.
“But you don’t have to let it define you. I don’t like to be known as Angie, the woman who lost two children. It’s me. Yes, I lost two children, but it’s me.”
As Remembrance Day approaches, Ms Moore has a simple message: “Remember everyone, in every conflict, in every country – every son, every daughter, every man, every woman. It’s not just about the First World War and the Second World War.”
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