Last updated 08:57, Friday, 27 June 2008

Maureen Feely doesn’t yet know when she will be able to accompany the daughter she calls her one and only to her last resting place at Wetheral Church. But she waits for that final journey in unshakeable certainty that no memory of her courageous girl will ever be laid to rest.

Sarah Bryant

The strongest of bonds between mothers and daughters are like that. They are unbreakable – even by death. All those confidences, shared hopes, dreams, joys, secrets, sorrows and fears – they keep mums and daughters together forever. And Maureen, 54, is especially glad of that now.

Though her only child – Corporal Sarah Bryant, Army intelligence officer – made history as the first female British soldier killed in action in Afghanistan at only 26, her mum Maureen wouldn’t change a moment of her adored daughter’s life.

She doesn’t long to turn back clocks, won’t regret Sarah’s career choices. She’s wasting no breath on a single, self-pitying “if only.”

“Sarah died the way she knew she might,” she said. “My daughter’s life was worth something. It was full. It was special. She lived it exactly as she had wanted it. Her achievements were wonderful and she has earned her place in history.

“Her work meant everything to her and I am the proudest of mums because I am able to say she made a difference – a real difference.

“Sarah’s wasn’t a wasted life. Teenagers who drink themselves stupid and kill each other in stabbings on the streets of British cities – they waste lives. My daughter’s life was everything she’d wanted it to be. She filled it with courage, purpose, belief and dignity. Please remember her for those qualities.”

It’s just a little more than a week since Sarah’s killing in a roadside bomb blast reopened public debate on the suitability of women serving on the frontline of war. A question Maureen now shrugs away, as she knows her daughter always did – if she ever thought of it at all. She is determined to make Sarah as proud of her now as she has always been of the child she raised to be a heroine.

“Of course I’m not always dry-eyed. It’s very hard. But were I to fall apart publicly and wail “Why me?” I know I’d be letting her down. I owe it to Sarah not to do that.

“She was my wonderful, precious, darling daughter. And she was a truly professional, talented and courageous soldier. She lived with danger, as do all serving soldiers. And she laughed as she called that danger her day job. There are no words to describe how proud I am of her. So, no – there’s nothing I would change. These were her choices. No one could have changed her mind about the direction she took.”

Sarah was killed in a large roadside explosion east of Lashkar Gah, in the southern Helmand Province of Afghanistan, last Tuesday. Three Territorial Army special forces soldiers, Corporal Sean Reeve, 28; Lance Corporal Richard Larkin, 39; and Paul Stout, 31, also died in the Taliban blast. Their remains were flown home to a repatriation ceremony at RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire on Monday. And sometime soon Sarah will be laid to rest, with full military honours, at Wetheral village church, where she was married just two years ago to Carl Bryant – also serving in the intelligence corps.

“We don’t know when the funeral will be,” Maureen explained. “Sarah took the full impact of the blast and the coroner has work to do before we can bury her.

“But really that’s a comfort to me. I know exactly what she was like. On that day she will have been laughing and joking with those men, keeping everybody’s spirits up. She handled every situation with laughter; has done since she was a little girl. And mercifully she will have died instantly, with that lovely Sarah smile on her face.”

All those shared qualities and more made Sarah perfect for service in Army intelligence. And that potential was spotted early. In a male dominated environment she was sufficiently charming and disarmingly personable to keep morale and motivation high. But she was also exceptionally skilled. Her talents earned the respect and admiration of all her colleagues and superiors.

She was driven, ambitious and confident. But she still called her mum to confide excitedly when she’d been praised by senior officers in appraisal or performance review reports. She was destined for great things in an Army which valued her highly. She was a soldier and a woman. The two were indivisible.

Those shared mother-daughter qualities serve Maureen well too. Right now, when she needs as much strength and composure as she can muster to face her loss, she draws from her daughter’s complete conviction that what she was doing was right – right for her; for her country’s security; for ordinary Afghans suffering appallingly under the cruel, heavy hand of Taliban extremists again claiming brutal control of a country torn by decades of conflict.

“I know there are people who say our forces shouldn’t be in Iraq or Afghanistan,” Maureen said. “But the fact is we are there and while ever we are, the very best people will be needed to serve in the military. Sarah was the best.

“There are also those who question whether women should be serving in such dangerous areas. All I can say about that is it never occurred to Sarah she might be at greater risk than a man or that by virtue of being female she deserved special treatment.

“She wanted only to be the very finest in her field, to excel. She was regarded highly by all the men with whom she served, as a soldier who knew her job; she communicated and briefed exceptionally. She was proud of that record and so am I.”

Maureen is divorced from Sarah’s father Des and now lives in the Lake District. On a sofa in her recently refurbished rural home sits a teddy bear wearing intelligence corps uniform – the corps’ badge on his cap. He holds a long stemmed silk red rose in his paws and carries a card with intimate message from daughter to mum... telling her she’s missed. He is treasured by Maureen.

“We’ve always been close. She has always told me everything – or at least I thought so until one day, out of the blue, she called and said somebody had asked her to marry him.

“I asked if ‘somebody’ had a name and how she had answered. She told me his name was Carl, they’d met in training and her answer had been yes – in fact they’d bought the ring a fortnight previously. ‘Then I suppose I should meet somebody,’ I said. I’ve never seen two young people more happy. Carl and Sarah were perfect for each other – absolutely perfect.”

Though the Army tried, wherever possible to arrange for the young married couple to spend leave time together and to be posted within travelling distance of each other when circumstance allowed, in two years of marriage they were together for only around 10 months.

“But they accepted that. They both loved the work they did. It was their lives... their shared life. Neither complained. Carl and Sarah were like one person. They were very much in love.”

Maureen last spoke to Sarah on June 15, two days before she died. She had told her mum that, as her colleagues were topping up their tans outside, she was growing whiter and whiter in the shade, as she avoided searing sun and 55 degree heat.

“She was as chirpy and chatty, as always. Laughing about another day at the office, really. We spoke for about 20 minutes. Her calls tended to be limited because she would use her phone card to call Carl, her dad and me – sharing out time as best she could. She was due home next month. But now, of course...

“Maybe I did have a sense of there being something different about this tour. Just a feeling. Afghanistan seems somehow different to Iraq, where she has also served of course. It seems more deeply dangerous, more brutal – particularly for Afghan women and their children. Like something from the middle ages. My guess is we’ll have to be there for years.

“Sarah’s skills were particularly valuable in relating to women but she spoke little of what her work involved, never once giving me reason to fear for her; never ever giving me cause to think this was no job for a woman... no job for my little girl.

“Sarah’s gender at work was an irrelevance to her, to her immediate colleagues and to her senior officers who praised her as an exceptional soldier. Why would it not be an irrelevance to me?

“I wanted her to live the life she chose. I want her to be remembered as a selfless, professional soldier who paid the ultimate price to make a difference to our lives.

“She was my only child, my one and only, the little girl I brought up, a girl who grew to be a very special woman, a brave and wonderful soldier, committed right to the end.”