HE sacrificed months away from his home, family and friends – and, single-handedly, used his skills as an electrician to keep Britain's only military field hospital in Afghanistan running.

Yet Bob Fox, sergeant major in a Sheffield Territorial Army unit, insists he is not a hero. The 50-year-old, a dad of three children aged 28, 25 and 11, and grandfather of two children, aged six and two, believes he was just doing his job.

Those worthy of recognition, he says, are fellow TA volunteers from South Yorkshire who worked in the hospital, at Camp Bastion, in Helmand province, who operated on and cared for injured troops and civilians.

Warrant Officer II Fox, of 106 Field Squadron Royal Engineers, based at Greenhill, was in Afghanistan for four months on his first tour of duty in 28 years of being a member of the TA.

He accompanied 80 reservist medics from 212 Squadron Field Hospital, Endcliffe, who manned the hospital.

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"It was my first tour ever and I don't think I could have prepared for the reality of it. But I am not a hero – that's the doctors and nurses. They did some brilliant things and I can't speak highly-enough of them," he said.

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Because Mr Fox, whose day job is convener for trade union Unite at Sheffield Council's maintenance contractor Kier, was based at the hospital – in a vast compound covering three square miles and housing 2,500 military personnel – he did not experience any of the fighting.

During his time there, Camp Bastion was never fired on – but reminders of the horror of war were all around him.

As the only non-medic in the tented hospital, his most important duty was maintaining the electrical supply, so the wards and operating theatres could keep running.

This involved daily checks and repairs to circuits, which were vulnerable to the blistering heat of up to 50C.

But Mr Fox also volunteered to help prepare coffins of dead soldiers for repatriation.

"I didn't have to do it but the sergeant major whose job it was was on his own. We sent home 14 British soldiers and a lot of Afghan National Army," he said.

And he kept an eye on what was happening in the operating theatres, some of which was truly remarkable.

During the four months Mr Fox was there, 1,400 people were seen at the hospital, which has now been replaced by a permanent building.

Patients included squaddies, who ranged from those with horrific wounds to a special forces soldier who had been shot in the buttock, Afghan civilians and children.

Mr Fox said: "There was an eight-year-old boy, Hassan, whom we called the miracle kid. He had open heart surgery after being hit by a piece of shrapnel when he and his sister had been playing with a Russian anti-tank mine they thought was a tennis ball.

"It went through his chest and pierced his heart. Five days after surgery, he was up and kicking a ball around."
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