Goodie boxes for soldiers in Afghanistan packed with love...and pickled onions

A soldier from North Wales has revealed how he survived being blown up by a massive roadside bomb in Afghanistan.

Private Neil Carrington was speaking during a visit to Pendine Park care where staff and residents have sending morale boosting goodie boxes to the squaddies on the front-line in Helmand province.

Among the residents who have been helping out is 93 year old Margaret Ellis who served as a nurse amid the carnage of Northern France during the early part of the Second World War 70 years ago.

She was nicknamed Sister Spitfire by German Prisoners of War because of her forthright attitude and indomitable spirit.

The goodie boxes are packed with simple things like pickled onions, crisps, shower gel, toothpaste, packs of cards, travel games - and each one contains a personal letter for the soldiers.

Private Carrington had just completed a six-month tour of duty there during a period when the death toll has been mounting.

A builder by trade, Neil, aged 40, is in the Territorial Army, the 3rd battalion of the Royal Welsh based in Wrexham.

He is engaged to Sarah Jones,the daughter of Ann Chapman, the manager of Pendine Park's Cae Bryn Care Home - and was the inspiration behind the goodie box campaign.

Private Carrington said that life had been "a bit frenetic" in Afghanistan and that there were a couple of times when he thought was going to be killed.

He described how a 65 kilogram Improvised Explosive Device or IED in a yellow plastic container had blown up the Warrior armoured personnel carrier he was driving.

Private Carrington recalled: "We were securing one of the routes for the convoy to come through and as we were positioning ourselves,

"Luckily, the Warrior did its job because obviously they're the best vehicles out there. There were seven of us all together but nobody was hurt.

According to Private Carrington, the goodie boxes from Pendine Park had kept them going during the tour.

"It's been fantastic. All together, we had more than 350 parcels from Pendine Park and in the end everybody received a parcel. It's like receiving a piece of home.

"It's almost like getting Christmas presents. You're talking blokes not kids, getting just as excited as a little kid would on Christmas day."

Ann Chapman felt that the reaction of the Squaddies had made all the effort worthwhile.