Hampshire soldier Eleanor Dlugosz was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq on April 5 this year. CHRIS BROOM finds out how her family are trying to live without the beloved teenager. WITH tears glistening in his eyes and daughter Sally at his side, Lionel Veck brings out a large wooden trunk and places it gently on the sofa.
The case contains a posthumous medal, pictured right, an army uniform, belt, cap and collar badges which belonged to Eleanor Dlugosz – his beloved granddaughter, and Sally's daughter. And also neatly folded inside is the Union Flag that was draped over Eleanor's coffin at her funeral. Lionel, his wife Mary and Sally were given the trunk by Eleanor's army bosses when they travelled to Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire, where Eleanor had been based.
This is the first time since then that they have opened it up. And as they sit in the living room of the family's farmhouse home in Forest Road, Swanmore, near Fareham, the sight of its contents brings it all back. Sally says: 'I didn't want to be there the night before, but once we got there and it started it was fine.
It was a chance to see a lot of people and do a lot of talking to people who knew her.' And Mary chuckles as she remembers sharing a joke with Eleanor's colleagues, who finally got to meet 'Badger Palace Gran.' She got the nickname after mishearing 'Basra Palace' on one of her grand-daughter's weekly phone calls home, and later sending an e-mail referring to the base by that name.
The e-mail soon became well-known among the troops. Private Eleanor Dlugosz, at the age of just 19, became the youngest British woman killed in the war in Iraq when her armoured vehicle was blown up by a roadside bomb near Basra in the south of the country on April 5. Her unit was the Royal Army Medical Corps 3 Close Support Medical Regiment.
She was providing medical support to a Warrior patrol from 2nd Battalion Duke of Lancaster's Battle Group when they were attacked. The same strike also killed Second Lieutenant Joanna Yorke Dyer, Corporal Kris O'Neill, and Kingsman Adam James Smith. The death of the four young soldiers brought the total number of military personnel killed in the country to 140, and cast the Vecks into the media spotlight as they found everyone wanted to talk to them, film them and photograph them.
But after the funeral – a service at St Peter's Church in Bishop's Waltham on April 27, attended by numerous top brass and hundreds of mourners and wellwishers – the spotlight turned elsewhere. Now the family are left to deal with their loss out of the public eye. Sally says bluntly: 'The busier I am the better.
'Inside I felt like screaming: "What drives beautiful girls like that to go and join the army?" But she was like an arrow – there was no stopping her.' 'She was never going to be a sales assistant or an office girl, but if you just met her you would think, what a quiet, shy girl.
' And the family have drawn strength from the hundreds of letters and cards they have been sent. 'And they've told us so many things we didn't know about her – we're still learning things.' Eleanor, known to her friends as Ella, had failed her first interview to join the army as she hadn't been assertive enough, but she was so determined to get in that the family gave her 'bossiness lessons' to help her.
Her family laugh as they recall making Eleanor shout for her ketchup at dinner if she asked too quietly. But although Sally, 41, harbours no regrets about letting her daughter follow her ambition, she wishes she had been able to let her do everything she had wanted do when she was growing up. And this is why they now have two new additions to the family – Jack Russell puppies Flora and Millie, who also help give Sally something to do.
'Life's too short, if you want to do something you should get on and do it. There are things I told Eleanor not to do, and now I wish I hadn't stopped her. 'Spotted dogs were something Eleanor had always wanted and I had said no.
'But for someone who was only 19, she packed a lot in, and I'm glad she did.' As the family talk about her, it becomes clear there were two Eleanors – the petite 5ft 2ins beautiful young woman who loved her family, animals and musicals, and the tough cookie who scored top marks in shooting and was the only one to kill a chicken for dinner during training when others turned squeamish. When she had been growing up – for the first nine years in Swanmore, and then in Somerset – Eleanor had been obsessed with animals.
Horseriding had been a major part of her life – her horse Polly, 17, had been with her practically all her life, even pulling the carriage that Eleanor drove to her school prom at 'I know hunting's not popular in Portsmouth, but that was an important part of who Eleanor was too. She loved hunting and riding,' adds Sally. She also wanted a retired racehorse, but we couldn't afford it.
' For the funeral the family hand-made a wreath, pictured above, in the shape of Polly. When they hear of other soldiers dying, Sally says: 'It's like another knife going in – you feel for all their families. We all still cry every single day.
' They talk of the last time she was home at the start of the year when Eleanor, Sally and Mary had spent the day drinking sherry and wine while watching their favourite movies and musicals – including The Mikado and Titanic – while they sang along. The laughter turns to tears as Mary says: 'I don't think I'll be able to watch The Mikado again without her.' Hampshire soldier Eleanor Dlugosz was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq on April 5 this year.
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