December the fourteenth, 2017. The date will never leave me. Although it was my third tour of Afghanistan in as many years with the Royal Scots Borderers, I didn’t realise at the time that it was to be my last. I’ll never forget what happened that day.

We were returning to Camp Bastion after an uneventful, routine patrol just east of Kajaki, in the Helmand Province. There was twelve of us in the truck. The Sergeant had a beat-up radio he took everywhere with him. We were all whistling along to Maroon 5’s ‘Move Like Jagger.’ The radio crackled with static but we could make it out clearly enough.

12 kilometres from our base, I heard an almighty blast, followed by the feeling of flying through the air. Then my world went black. And silent.

The truck we were travelling in had struck a roadside bomb. Both my legs were blown off in the explosion that day. It turned out I was the lucky one. I lost my two best mates that day. Private Andrew McInally and Lance Corporal Charles Evans. Two good men taken cruelly, and suddenly, from this world in the prime of their lives.

I was determined not let myself become a victim and fall into the trap of wallowing in self-pity for the rest of my life. After being flown back home, I focused on recovery, and my new normal. This meant surgery and intensive, gruelling physiotherapy sessions.

My trip to London, in the late summer of 2020, had been planned meticulously. I’d never visited London before but I was able to tick off several tourist haunts including the Tower of London, Cutty Sark and the impressive British Museum.

But, I hadn’t come to London as a tourist. My trip had brought me south of the Thames to achieve the first thing from my newly scribbled bucket list.

I arrived at the destination at 10 o’clock, and was ready to begin shortly after Noon.

As I reached my position, I waved nervously to the large crowd, gathered over two hundred feet away, who applauded and cheered enthusiastically. I steadied myself, sucking in a large lungful of air to settle me. I was ready. In the distance I could see the London Eye and the sprawling city beyond. The sun shone brightly. The wind light.

As I took my first tentative steps, the newfound silence was deafening. I could sense a collective ‘gasp’ from those who had come to watch me. 492 feet crossing a high-wire tightrope, between the chimneys of Battersea Power Station for Help for Heroes in my new prosthetic limbs, separated me from a world record.

Rest in peace, Andy and Chas. You will never be forgotten.

Dougie Shepherd