P Company

I'm a major in the British Army in the Royal Artillery.

Like I said, I end up here because I was the first woman to pass P Company.

That's pretty much it.

I've been here for 12 years and I guess we're here to talk about everything I've done.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Let's first chat about P company.

There's always been in front of seven, this big, like stereotype of like, women can't do P company, they're not physically capable and not this.

but yeah to see obviously the special forces like do their thing to see like yeah the green army doing their thing yeah

yeah love it man love it you um You were actually quite fit as well, and you went on to do P Company

in

your career.

Yeah.

Was it an airborne unit you were with? Yeah, it's a 2.1 aerosol battery.

You're sort of expected to be fit enough to go and get ready for P Company.

Yeah, I think the first one, I was fit enough, but I wasn't prepared enough for the course.

kind of how it happened.

And with some encouragement from my commanding officer, who is basically a lieutenant colonel in the army for the unit, at that stage... talked to me about potentially doing all arms commando course for the marines but that was a long-winded process that takes eight weeks and i couldn't quite get the time off of university because remember i'm only doing this part-time so the story goes um We found out that it was going to be like four weeks basically for me to go away, half the time for me to go and do the infamous P Company, which is parachute regiment selection.

And that was how I ended up doing P Company.

And it was never the game plan.

It was just that one thing led to another.

So I was wearing a white T-shirt.

They expect a little bit more of you as an officer cadet.

They expect you're not going to get through P Company unless they see something in you in terms of the leadership and the brawn.

And I actually, you know, I spoke to you about this before we chatted properly.

I did P Company, which is...

the test for the British Parachute Regiment.

It's a week long of physical tests, two events a day, arguably the hardest training in the British Army outside of Special Forces.

And I used to be a

little bit ashamed of telling people that because it was like a badge of honour to get through first time.

I passed P company first time, no problems.

You know, I got champion recruit or P company, you know, and I used to keep quiet about it and not really.