HGV driver and part-time shop worker Simon Gawne, who is also an Army Reservist, has been honing his skills on the battlefield as part of a 400-strong training exercise.

Trooper Gawne, 27, from Northwich, is a driver with the Chester-based C Squadron Queen’s Own Yeomanry (QOY), a light-armoured reconnaissance regiment - the Army’s eyes and ears on the ground.

Simon, who has been a Reservist for four years, joined Exercise Wessex Storm for several days on a bitterly cold and waterlogged Salisbury Plain to work alongside full-time soldiers of The Light Dragoons.

He joked: “This place feels like the coldest place on the planet!

“I’ve been training in Denmark and Canada, and thought they were cold, but one night in particular here has been even colder than that.

“We’ve been living out on the exercise area, so everything we need is on the Land Rover.

“We’ve learned so much and come so far, and I’m not sure the Regulars in the Light Dragoons we’re working with were expecting us to be at the standard we are at.”

On operations the QOY often deploy well in front of other friendly forces to gather intelligence on the enemy, and this exercise tested their ability to do that.

Simon said: “My work with the Army is so far removed from my day jobs and I get paid for it - it’s brilliant.

“To be able to come here, leave that behind and get mucky with my mates – it’s something I wouldn’t change for the world.”

His brother David, 25, is also an Army Reservist based in Birmingham.

Simon said: “He was the reason I joined.

“Him, me and my best mate joined at the same time, but David got injured, my mate didn’t pass basic and so I was the only one to pass out. I only joined because they did.”

The aim of Wessex Storm has been to test the ability of Regular and Reserve units to mesh together on the battlefield under the Army 2020 reforms.

The Light Dragoons, known as ‘England’s Northern Cavalry’, recruits from the north east and Yorkshire.