By Giles Whiting

FALKLANDS veteran Simon Weston began his conversation with pink-trousered former Sky TV anchor David Fitzgerald at the Brewhouse on Saturday night with an entertaining account of his Welsh childhood and his diminutive but fearsome matriarchal grandmother.

His equally redoubtable mother frogmarched him into the Welsh Guards after he “got into bother” at 16, and after several overseas postings a three-week trip on the QE2 took him to the Falklands with the 1982 Task Force.

His harrowing account of the inferno that engulfed his ‘sitting duck’ tank-carrier Sir Galahad in San Carlos Water, killing 48 men and injuring 96, was profoundly moving, as was his description of his lengthy physical and psychological recuperation from his injuries and 95 operations.

He initially degenerated into a 15 pints/60-a-day lifestyle which led to a suicide attempt, but he is now transformed, happily married to Lucy and worthy of his People’s Portrait in the National Portrait Gallery opposite Mrs Thatcher, “without whom none of this would have been possible!”

Weston’s contribution was preceded by a talk by RM Colour Sergeant Baz Barrett, who lost a leg, an arm, the sight of an eye and, temporarily, his memory in a Helmand Province IED blast, but who nevertheless climbed Ben Nevis earlier this year.

Despite recurring feedback problems and Fitzgerald’s sometimes toadying hosting, both men demonstrated the resilience and strength of character that have enabled them to come to terms with their situations, and delivered powerful messages with honesty, humility and humour.