Kitty Dimbleby - Daffodil Girls: Stories of love, loss and friendship from the women behind our heroes

Ever wondered what it is like to support a loved one in the armed forces? Army wife and journalist Kitty Dimbleby reveals stories of life, love and loss from the women behind the front line. Meet the girlfriends, mothers, wives and daughters of 2 Royal Welsh Battalion. For every brave soldier putting their life on the line for Queen and country, there is a second, more subtle sort of heroism at work back at base in Britain.

Daffodil Girls is the story of the women behind the soldiers of The 2nd Batallion The Royal Welsh. Granted unprecedented access into this most private of communities, writer Kitty Dimbleby brilliantly brings to life the lot of a soldiers wife. How do you have a relationship that is not only long-distance, but with someone who is both out of contact and in danger on a daily basis? How do you deal with everyday life, for yourself and your children while hes away? How do you readjust to your partners return, and come to terms with the horrors they might have seen? And how do you cope if your worst nightmare comes true that he doesnt come back at all?

Kitty Dimbleby follows these women through the cycle of a regiments tour of duty: the preparation for departure, the six long months of action and the emotional reunion.

Insightful, humorous and deeply moving in turn, Daffodil Girls captures the unique bond of friendship and indomitable spirit that is forged in such circumstances the extraordinary world of the heroines behind our army heroes.

Kitty Dimbleby, 31, has been working as a journalist for 10 years, writing for the Evening Standard, Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday. She has also contributed articles to The Times, The Guardian, Cosmopolitan and Metro. In 2007, she reported from Iraq and visited Basra Palace, the former British Army base where she came under heavy mortar fire. In 2008 Kitty followed that particular field assignment with a visit to Afghanistan.

Kitty is passionately involved with the charity Help for Heroes working for the past year as part of their media team and editing the charitys quarterly magazine, Heroes. She is married to a captain in the Kings Royal Hussars. They live in the army garrison town of Tidworth, Wiltshire.

The 2nd Battalion The Royal Welsh is an armoured infantry battalion based in Tidworth, Wiltshire.

While the lives of our soldiers have changed dramatically over the years the conflict zones they fight in, the enemies they face and the experience of war itself not much has changed in the life of an army wife. The time drags when they are away six months feels like six years, the anxiety is crippling, it is terribly lonely and only those who have lived it can really understand what you are going through. I know because Ive been there; first back in 1981 when my fianc was on an operational tour of Northern Ireland and then in 2009, when my son was deployed to Helmand in Afghanistan. You have to be as brave, albeit in a different way, as the soldier you love, keeping the life they have left behind running in their absence, while also living with terrible fear not of a bullet or a mortar, but a knock on the door bringing the news you dread.

Daffodil Girls is the story of the countless unsung heroines of army life: the women who have to sit and wait for their loved ones to return from increasingly dangerous operational tours, all the time desperately trying to keep their darkest thoughts at bay - what if the soldier they love comes back changed, injured or, unbearably, doesnt come back at all?

In the summer of 2007 my husband Bryn and I met some of those wounded, and their families, and decided we had to do something Help for Heroes was born. The aim was to provide direct practical support to those injured in the service of our country, and therefore also their families. The message of the charity would be strictly non-political and non-critical, giving people a chance to do their bit to show these extraordinary men and women that they are cared about by us, the British public.

Three and a half years on and the response has been phenomenal. The money donated to Help for Heroes (a total of 85m at time of going to print) is used in a huge variety of ways. The first major undertaking was the 8m state-of-the-art gym and swimming pool complex at DMRC (Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre) Headley Court, which opened in June 2010. The next big project will be the Personnel Recovery Centres planned for Edinburgh, Colchester, Catterick, Tidworth and Plymouth. The centres will provide individually tailored care for the wounded, teach them new skills and provide access to comprehensive support, ranging from medical and psychological care, to financial and employment assistance. The intention is to create a one-stop welfare shop so army personnel can leave the centres fully prepared to tackle the next stage of their lives, knowing exactly where to go for help if they have problems.