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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 118706" data-attributes="member: 22">Dr Stockton, army psychiatrist: Five years in the Paras. See much action?Grant Mitchell: A tour of duty in Northern Ireland, sir, and the Falklands campaign.Max: I can’t think of a time when the British Army weren’t sticking its oar in somewhere. It’s what they do.Phil: When you was a little girl, you must have been about five or six, me and Mum, we took you to Portsmouth.Sam Mitchell: To see Grant off to the Falklands.Tiffany Mitchell on Grant: What was he like then?Peggy Mitchell: Very handsome. The day he went off on that ship to the Falklands, I was so proud. I remember him standing on the deck looking down at me. He was only nineteen.Pat Evans: Richard Gere in “An Officer and a Gentleman” — I could put some wrinkles in that white uniform, no problem.Peggy: You don’t think I wasn’t scared when my Grant went off to the Falklands?Dot Branning: But you stuck by him, didn’t you, Peggy? You did your duty.Peggy: You have to put your feelings to one side when there’s principles at stake.Phil: When that ship left the harbour, you wouldn't let go of them railings. You hung on till the bitter end.Sam: Mum got so cross.Phil: Only because you made us miss the train — but she was so proud of you because even as a kid, you realised that family's what really mattered.Hazel Hobbs on Gary’s Aunty Di and Aunty Vi: You do know none of them’s your real aunties, don’t you, little mate? They was babysitters. I had to buy your aunties by the hour.Alice Lord to Tanya Branning: You used to call me Aunty. I live at Number 13 [on the Ainsworth Estate]. You used to come and visit me, you and Rainie, when you was little.Tanya: Aunty Alice, yeah. I remember.Alice: Only you stopped coming when you went to the big school.Rainie to her niece Abi: The [school] me and your mum went to had rats running everywhere.Tanya: No it didn't.Rainie: All right — boys then. But it's the same thing though, isn't it?Cora Cross on loan sharks: I didn’t live twenty years on the Ainsford without learning how to deal with lowlife like them.Sam: "Worse things happen at sea." Who used to say that?Billy Mitchell: I don't know.Sam: She was always at Christmases and family parties with us — you know, always saying things like that, like, “A stitch in time saves nine" and “It's an ill wind that blows no good." Was it Aunt Sal?Billy: No, no. She never said anything unless she was putting someone down. I tell you who it was — it was Aunty Doreen. She used to live next door to Peggy's brother-in-law. She had big thick glasses, hairnet.Sam: You're right.Billy: I'm surprised you remember her at all. I mean, I was in me twenties. You can have only been about seven when she popped her clogs.Sam: I remember that because I remember thinking, "She must have done something terrible." I mean, none of us went to her funeral, did we?Billy: No, I don't think she did anything terrible. It's just that she wasn't a Mitchell. We only used to call her Aunty Doreen because she used to come round all the time, babysit for all of us. She wasn't our real aunt.Sam: And none of us went to her funeral because of that?Billy: I don't think it was because of that. I mean,the family would have gone and close friends and that. It's just — well, it just wasn't a Mitchell funeral.Sam: Who did we think we were, Billy — royalty?Billy: Yeah. Mind you, I was only ever the court jester.Sam: What does that make me — spoilt princess?Billy: Well, I didn't hear you complain about it at the time.Sam: I hadn't been cut down to size by then, had I?Billy: It was weird really because even if you were a real Mitchell, there was still a sort of pecking order. There was your mum and dad, Grant and Phil,you — and then the rest of us.Sam: Really? I never saw it like that. I always felt like I was on the outside, like I hadn't passed some test or something. Hadn't got my A level in Mitchell-ness.Billy: Did you mind?Sam: I used to.Billy: Grant and Phil, I know that they're your brothers, but what did they ever do to be a real Mitchell that you didn't?Sam: Hit people, mostly.Billy: “Who’s the daddy?” Remember that one, do you, Phil — you and Grant, pinning me down, giving me the dead arm?Peggy: You haven't got anything like that [violence] in you. You never had.Sam: You actually sound disappointed.Peggy: You don't disappoint me, Sam. You never have.Sam: What, compared to Phil and Grant?Peggy: You're different to them, that's all.Sam: Weaker, you mean, don't you? And feeble, a lot more feeble.Peggy: I'm proud of you in a different way to the boys. And so what if you're not like them? It's no-one's fault.Sam: And now I'm wondering whether me being like this, being different to the boys — and you do mean weaker, Mum, you do mean more feeble — whether deep down, that actually suited you. I know what I'm like, I always have, but who made me like that? Who made sure of it?Peggy to Grant: It was hard for me when you were in the Falklands. Harder than anywhere, even Belfast. Felt so far away. They might as well put you on the moon.Phil on Chris Taylor: He was in Grant's regiment. They were in the Falklands together.Grant on Chris Taylor: He was a great bloke, a brilliant bloke. We were best mates. We was always getting the rocket from our sergeant for the state of our kits. He used to call us The Slags.Lofty Holloway: I was good at cleaning in the army. I was really good at keeping my kit clean. I was good at [mechanics]. I wanted to make a career of that. I would have done if it hadn't been for me chest. My sergeant said I was the best motor mechanic that had ever been through his hands.Grant on Dougie Briggs: He was in the regiment.Dougie Briggs: Mates were mates then, real mates. Always had someone to watch your back.Lofty: In the army, you got fighting drunk. I remember there was this one geezer, he had this dirty great cut all down his leg and instead of putting it up with, you know, proper stitches and that, they just did it with three dirty great homeward bounders.Phil on Grant's army mates: We've been out with all that lot.Phil: I remember what Grant and his mates were like — soldiers on the lash? It’s like putting petrol on the fire.Grant: We used to have some good [drinking] sessions, eh? Especially when I got a bit of leave.Phil: Yeah.Grant: Remember I had that twenty-four hour pass once and we spent all of it in the Murray Arms in Whitechapel?Phil: Yeah. What was the landlord's name?Grant: John. He had a heart attack at four o'clock in the morning.Phil: Yeah, with you stepping over him to get to the Bacardi optics.Grant: I didn't know, did I? I thought he'd passed out.Phil: He had.Grant: I didn't know he had a dodgy ticker though, did I?Phil: Well, he didn't until he met us. You know he retired after that.Grant: I'm not surprised. Now the Duke of Wellington, now that was a lovely boozer.Phil: Yeah, Mentmore Street.Grant: Nothing fancy. Just a couple of pool tables, a jukebox and a barmaid that always looked like she might. Never did though.Phil: You needed a bit of a good drink, didn't you, when you were on leave because the army really started getting to you, didn't it?Grant: I just think I'd had enough, that's all.Dave Roberts: My Dad was a Churchill's [beer] man. Worked in the brewery all his life and me mum ran the General Gordon. I cut me teeth there when I was a fresh-faced lad just out the army.Peggy: Did you ever see active service?Dave: The Falklands.Peggy: Which regiment?Dave: The Paras. That's where I met your Grant.Lofty on the army: It's only time I felt good, you know. Till they found the asthma. I only got it when I went in the army. I've been tested for everything, pin pricks all up my arm to see what I was allergic to. They never found nothing. They chucked me out so I was back under her [his mother's] thumb.Grant: There aren't words for some of the things I've seen. In the Falklands.DCI Chapman: Rough, was it?Grant: It had its moments.Grant to Tiffany: You were still at school when I was out there fighting. I killed people out there.Tiffany: The big white wedding.Simon Raymond: It's what you always wanted, what you dreamt of growing up.Tiffany: Oh yeah.Simon: When I was little, sometimes I used to have nightmares and I couldn't sleep. I never cried or anything, but Tiff always knew. She'd creep into my bedroom in the dark and hold my hand and tell me stories. I never heard the end of them because I couldn't keep awake. The worst thing is, I never thanked her.Sharon Watts on "S 4 M" scratched on the side of one of the allotment sheds: Must have been about thirteen. I made the mistake of telling [Michelle] I fancied Mark. Amazing what you can do with a door key and a bit of time. We'd come up here in the summer, when Mum and Dad had a ruck or whatever, and you could lie back and close your eyes and imagine you were miles away, on a beach or something.Grant: I've killed for Queen and Country. When you've done something like that, you're a different person. You don't really think about it at the time. You're too scared. You rely on your training. It's only afterwards.Grant: The Falklands wasn't some trip that we brought souvenirs home from. It was a war. My best mates died there. And afterwards, we collected them and buried them, what was left of some of them. We said our goodbyes at the graveside.Grant: I killed someone when I was in the Falklands, up close. He was just a kid, sixteen, sat in some trench on the side of a godforsaken hill. He was crying. He didn't even have gun. All he wanted to do was give himself up and go home, and I emptied a magazine into him. I sat and watched him die in front of me. You know something? It was easy. We'd been chucking stuff at them all day, long range. They were spots on the horizon. It was more like a funfair. Afterwards, we were told to go in and mop up. I'd never seen the enemy, not close, before. When we got there, I didn't think. I kept pumping bullets into his body. He was already dead and I — I was shipped home a week later. Out of the army within a month. I never told anyone. Not even Phil.Peggy: I’ll never forget the day when I saw the pictures of that flag flying over Port Stanley, the thought that my son had played a part in all that.Carol Jackson on Grant: Made a man of him, did it [the army]?Peggy: He was a man to begin with.Carol: He wasn’t by the time he’d finished. That war turned him into a psycho. War drove him nuts.Phil: The Falklands gave you nightmares.Grant: The Falklands was enough to give anyone nightmares.Joe Wicks: So you left?Grant: Yeah. After the Falklands, I'd had enough. Let's just say I'd seen too much.Peggy: I remember the coming home tea we did for you. Phil brought you home from Southampton Docks. There was your dad in a tie, me with me hair done.Grant: Yeah, hoping all the neighbours were watching.Peggy: Little Sam done you a picture.Grant: That's right, and I was out of me nut trying not to let on.Peggy: Didn't do a very good job, did you?Grant: I had everything to look forward to then. A new start. I know I had to give it time to get over things, but I had a future. Didn't know where I was going, but I knew I was going to get there.Peggy: The you I saw when you came back, just like when you were a nipper — always putting on a big show that nothing could get to you, but you didn't fool your mum.Grant: You know that picture Sam drew? It was me on a ship. Well, it was supposed to be a ship. It was more like a raft. It was of me all on my own, surrounded by seas. That's how I felt. Adrift, alone.Phil: You'd had enough of the army.Grant: No, you and Mum thought I'd had enough. I never had enough.Dougie Briggs on the Falklands campaign: We were needed then. Had the country behind us. We were important.Grant: Yeah.Dougie: Then suddenly, it's gone. All dried up.Grant on Dougie: We weren't together all that long. [He] transferred to our place about a month before I left. He was always going on about joining the SAS. He was a bit of a green-eyed boy. His kit was always immaculate.Terry Mason: Briggsy? He's a nutter, a loony, a space cadet. He went off on one. He got turned down by the heavy mob on psychological grounds. Anyway, they sent him back to us with this report and the old man flipped out. He got dragged up in front of the M.O., told that he was going to recommend that the army dispense with his services on account of him being a nutter. As I heard it, he went round to the M.O's at three in the morning and tried to persuade him not to put the report in. Obviously, he wasn't having any of it so Briggsy shot him. Splattered him all over the living room carpet. Oh, and that ain't all. Just for good measure, he raped his wife. I heard they sat on it. Bad for the image, old boy.Jamie Mitchell: My folks had me before they were ready.Phil to Jamie: I remember the night you were born. [Charlie] came down the pub fit to burst, and he bought everyone in the place a drink.Ronnie: My mum used to say you should never drink alone.Roxy: My mum always told me not to go with strangers.Roxy to Archie: You always used to say I didn’t worry enough.Heather Trott: Mummy used to say if God made us hairy that’s what he wanted us to look like. I spent my fourth year at school looking like a yeti with clothes on. I stopped listening when I came home early one day and found Mummy with bleach on her goatee and shaving her tache.Heather on George Michael: The first time I ever saw him, ‘Young Guns’ — rolled up jeans with espadrilles. I couldn’t find any so I started wearing Mummy’s orthopaedic sandals.Shirley Carter: The glamour!Heather: Big time! I had his stickers all over my bag. I used to clean in the bakers so I could afford all the magazines he was in.Heather: I remember my first job. Mummy had to drag me out of bed.Heather on George Michael: Then I used to pin his pictures to the polystyrene tiles above my bed - navy vest, highlights, with just a hint of a smile.Shirley: Leave you two to it, shall I?!Heather: That’s what Mummy used to say, but not so nice.Heather: I’ve been sleeping next to George most of my life. I know every little dimple, every little freckle.Heather on George Michael: He’s been the most important man in my life. I’ve never had anyone to love, not properly.Heather on George Michael: All these years I knew something was going to bring us together eventually.Ian Beale on Billy Idol’s first solo album: I was thirteen when this came out in 1982. I didn’t just like Billy Idol. I wanted to be Billy Idol. There was this girl at school, Sally Bateman. Thinking about it, she looked a bit like [Cindy Williams, his first wife]. I didn’t half have the hots for her. I always reckoned I was going to marry Sally Bateman and Billy Idol was going to be playing ‘White Wedding’ at our wedding.Jean Slater to her son Sean: Your dad saved for ages and ages to get my engagement ring.Jean: I remember the night before my wedding. I was floating on air, I was. Floating.Jean: There was no such thing as prenups when I got married, no big fancy weddings either.Jean: We had the works. Well, Brian was very traditional - white dress and loads of lace. It was lovely.Roxy, looking at Jean’s wedding album: You were a beautiful bride.Roxy: You always were jealous, weren’t you, anytime anyone was a bridesmaid?Ronnie: Me? You wanted to be the bridesmaid.Roxy: You’d sulk for weeks at school anytime any other girl ...Ronnie: You always do this, you always twist it round. I never wanted to be a bridesmaid, it was you.Roxy: Was it?Ronnie: Yes.Glenda on Ronnie: When she was a little girl, she used to study my wedding photos for hours. Once she even managed to find my dress and try it on.Stacey Slater: Mum, how did you know Dad was right for you?Jean: He was the only person that would have me, wasn’t he?! I just knew, didn’t I? He was the one I wanted to grow old with. He was a good man.Jean: This [council house in Leytonstone] was ours when me and Brian got married.Jean to Stacey: “Shut the door. It’s just us. We don’t need no one else.” That’s what your dad used to say to me — a bunch of carnations, a box of chocolates every Friday night.Jean: Me and Brian had an Austin Princess.Jean: My Brian used to have a telescope. He used to gaze at the stars for hours. Said he found it very therapeutic.Laurie Bates on his wife Marion: We were married five years when she started to get sick. I coped as best as I could because that's how it had to be between us. She insisted on going into the hospice in the end. I was in a daze, walking the streets looking at old people, hating them because they were alive and she was dead at thirty-three. Anyway, I played the field, made sure no one got too close to me. A few drinks, a few laughs, nobody gets hurt in the end.</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?