I know that music can bring people together under really extraordinary circumstances.

In three weeks time, these soldiers will be fighting for their country in Afghanistan.

They'll be leaving behind more than 120 women and their Children being quite a few fatalities, which is horrific.

This is really is not playing.

It's no action down here.

This is real stuff.

These people are separated from their husbands.

There's a real danger that they could be injured.

They might not even come back.

Gareth will pull these women together in tow, acquire off military wives.

I am here to lift your spirits.

Hopefully pick you up.

Bring your voices together to be heard.

Words can't explain how much how much.

I just wanted to come home.

If I let my guard down and let the emotion come out, I would be crying the whole day.

The whole point of this is to give voice to these women and make people hear them.

And it's amazing how much some of them hide Theo way.

In less than eight months, Gareth will take his choir from obscurity.

Breakfast pieces up through the ranks of the military establishment.

It's about boosting Meron.

It's about finding pride in yourselves.

I want to run away.

I just want to run with I'm right to the heart of the nation's tribute to the troops with a grand performance at the Royal Albert Hall.

This is like no other gig I have ever done.

Gig is the wrong word.

This is a Sarah because it just get you going into a very sensitive situation with something is ridiculous and it's Crassus.

Seeing a quiet, it's testing.

What acquire is four.

I'm really testing it to the limit.

It's early spring, and Gareth is moving to Devon, where he'll be staying for the next eight months.

He'll start a choir with the wives of soldiers and Marines base nearby who are about to deploy to Afghanistan.

It's a time when the military is just in everyone's mind.

Every time I have been a newspaper best, there's been a new, awful story from Afghanistan, but we don't think about who's left at home, and we only ever hear about military wives when they're on the news on when something's gone wrong.

When the chips are down and you haven't got anything else to get you through.

I think singing is what seeing was invented for us for bringing people together, even when things are bad.

Yeah, I know nothing about the military.

Absolutely nothing other than what I've been told that I've seen on the news.

I've never spent time on a military base.

I know very little about military life.

I really don't know what to expect.

Gareth will be choirmaster at the Royal Marine Barracks.

A chip in a remote spot in North Devon.

I think this is the most intimidating place I've ever been in my life.

You get used to it.

Get to you Has being a basic Chibana since before the Second World War.

Now it's a training base for nearly 1200 men from the Royal Marines, the army and the just get used to the sea.

In just three weeks, these men will deploy to Afghanistan.

How's the mood?

The moon is good.

I mean, we've spent a lot of time training, Although you can't train too much.

Yeah, we're at the point now where we've done enough.

We're ready to get you Mind me asking how old you are.

You know, young 20 to 25.

28.

Just not an easy paper on.

How's your wife way?

No, that way.

Think that's a bit harder for our families actually than us when we're deployed?

Because they still gotta deal with normal day to day life.

Gareth's joining Family Day on the base.

A chance for everyone to get together for the last time before the troops leave.

Morning.

Right.

Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Cara.

From alone on Dhe.

I'm going to be here for the next eight months.

I wants to invite anyone to come and join a choir.

You don't need to be a brilliant singer.

I'm around.

Come speak to me If you're tall.

Interested?

If you ever ever thought about singing If you sing in the shower, it's about bringing everyone together Tumble.

Wade, I'm starting a corn quiet.

Uh huh.

For the wives and girlfriends and anyone who's left behind while the trickster away Do you sing?

You're deploying in through is roughly three walks through a feeling I get about It is the first time.

Yeah, big deal.

Yeah, is so the whole purpose of me being here is to offer you something to do Something to take your mind off what's going on while they're away.

Would you be interested?

Good.

Have you heard that I'm here to start a choir?

Yes.

Word travels fast.

Are you interested?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Is what is he saying?

Everything.

So you be interested like most?

Definitely.

That is, without question, the most positive response.

Are you interested?

Well, yes.

But let me sing you.

What do you think's gonna be?

Outstanding?

Good, absolute.

That snow.

I don't envy anybody to pull these individuals into a choir.

Soldiers are our soldiers and they are trained on do obey orders for good reason.

Wives clearly don't fall into that category and rightly rightly so.

And they never should.

They will have their own views on issues the ways that they want to do things which I think we'll just add to the challenge off trying to form them into a choir.

It's so strange that here we are, drinking cups of tea and coffee outside, enjoying the weather and having a nice fate on these guys going to war in three weeks and they'll be in Afghanistan.

Everyone's gonna be worried about them.

So it's just gonna be such a strange atmosphere on the bags.

Up to that, it's the calm before the stone 280 houses make up the married quarters known as the patch standing on the perimeter of the base.

It's where the majority of troops live with their families.

It's quite a dull place, but there's nothing apart from a low.

Houses on houses seem to vary, depending on what rank you are.

It does still very remote from the rest of the world, where only about half a mile from Barnstable and yet we're in it.

Linklater.

I wonder if they have any interaction with the outside world.

Frankly, it's very claustrophobic, so you're right on top of everyone that your husband works with no getting away from them.

Soldier's wife, Nicki, and her family moved to chip in a only a few months ago.

It's 1/5 base in 10 years.

She thinks Garrett Squire could make all the difference.

It's hard to meet people, I think, because there is a big, big cross section of or they're all with the service's there's clicks of people.

What happens is you get parties mass functions on those Wife, go to them.

The other wives don't because they had another regiments or something.

You make acquaintances, not friends.

And you need things to bring people together.

You do neat things.

Having a choir here is gonna be brilliance.

I can't say that I actually have ever seen the commanding officer.

So be honest with them.

I know where she lives.

And I hear people say she's a lovely lady show she is.

Gareth wants to spread the word on the patch that his first choir rehearsals are about to get underway.

Hello.

I am not some money.

I haven't got a baby.

Hello, Stacey.

Hi, Stacy.

Hello.

I'm guard.

Local Quan Master.

So Well, what What is that?

Today Fee?

Why won't your husbands were away?

Nothing really.

Nothing whatsoever.

Just the long counting.

The long day.

So what about singing?

I'm starting quiet.

My dream is to gave with sick your dream.

I'm gonna make that dream come true.

You hope?

He said you used to be in a choir.

Oh, great.

When?

When I was like from 12 to 17.

Brilliant.

So you know what you're doing to me?

What can I tell you what that means.

Brilliant.

It's really nice to meet you, and I will, but let you know.

I will put a notice up.

See again.

Sam's husband, John, is in the Royal Engineers a 27 he's about to deploy to Afghanistan for the first time.

It's a mixture of emotions, like if you'll guilt because you think good have I forced you into the Army to give us a better life?

Then you're angry that they're going like, you know everything just feels so.

Ted's Sam will be left to look after their two young Children.

Broody has whatis expect from disorder is not developed his age.

He's seven, but is Maur us our four year old level.

Yeah, life it Life can be difficult because I was brought His behavior can be really challenging at times and I wouldn't change it.

I'm really up for the choir.

I will sing in and I think my husband will have a bit more peace of mind that you know I'm gonna be occupied and kept busy.

So then I think if you kept busy, the time will hopefully go quicker as well.

So yeah, I'm really looking for it's March, and after months of preparation and training, deployment day has arrived.

Some 600 men will say good bye to their families and leave the barracks for six months in Afghanistan.

No, for Nicky.

It's the fifth time husband George has been deployed.

We've done it before, but it's always different.

All the feelings because the Children are older and you know what's going on.

I thought he wouldn't have had to go again because, um, he's done.

What's George?

2021 years?

Um, don't bet.

But you have to get on with it, which we chose in this lifestyle, so on them.

And that's how it is.

Hey, go, chicken.

Which one?

She was not one of my stomachs tuning How many hours ago you use to come.

Three years to go.

Its upper lake.

Nigel Williams.

Coach Thompson.

Some of my learned building Thio going, and it's just just end this abandoned city captain purse.

It never gets any easier.

You still have that worry more if you know, you dread that fear of, um, the knock on the door tough Sergeant Bowe, but your world for being told, right?

Okay, you don't office.

Um frightened him, really frightened him, and he goes through a lot of emotions because of it.

Cuts in ground something.

Maddox.

When he says good bye to me, it's not gonna be his last goodbye.

It's like a ghost town here.

There's nothing.

There's just nothing going on.

Last week, there were soldiers around and people driving about.

Now it's just it's really quiet.

Today is Garrett's first rehearsal for his Military Wives choir.

The chapel on the edge of the barracks will be their base for the next few months.

They're in a real low point.

Their husbands have just gone literally last weekend on Dhe.

I think a few of them probably haven't ventured out of the house very much.

So this is the thing is the time to be having fun, getting them, getting them going.

I don't know how they're gonna react to that.

Well, you know whether they feel it's appropriate while their husbands were away for them.

Just be having a nice time during some singing 10 minutes to go.

There's nobody coming yet.

It's a bit worrying.

It actually hadn't occurred to May that I wouldn't have people turning up.

I'm just gonna get sealed here for the choir and no going to the military base.

You here for the car?

Thanks for coming.

So use this.

This is John.

Hello.

I take it you're here for the quiet.