Forewarned

Lieutenant-Colonel (Retd) Diane Allen had 30 years' experience in the British Army.

She was one of the first women at Sandhurst. Sandhurst was so unprepared there were no boots small enough for women and no beds for them (a recurrent theme).

She served in Northern Ireland and Germany in the regular army, then 25 years in the reserves, alongside a career in the public and private sector. She moved through the ranks into more senior military leadership, creating new intelligence units. But with each success she achieved, resistance from those in charge increased.

In November 2018, Diane was awarded the OBE for services to military intelligence. By November 2019, she started a messy divorce with the army. But she isn't leaving voluntarily - she has been pushed out.

A soldier with an appalling record made a malicious complaint against her and, despite being vindicated, she was side-lined, without explanation. Was this just toxic leadership, looking to distance itself from the risk of that soldier turning his anger on them, or something more sinister? An underlying misogyny that used this incident as opportunity to reinforce a bullet-proof glass ceiling for women in defence.

Today she works as a defence consultant. Paid, ironically, four times what she earned in the military. But she would still rather have remained in the Army.

This is her account of her time in the army; the comical, the tragic, the painful and the honest story of a woman for whom the Army will always be her true family.