This brand new series sees Jeremy Kyle find out exactly what it takes to be a driver in the British Armed Forces. Jeremy joins the team at the Defence School of Transport in Leconfield, East Yorkshire, the largest, toughest driving school in the world where 16,000 trainees pass through each year, taking part in over 100 different courses. It’s here that every driver deployed in Afghanistan is trained and the skills learned in training help save lives on the front line. Over the course of 12 weeks Jeremy follows a group of trainees learning to drive for the first time and a group of experienced soldiers who are learning to drive highly specialist vehicles ready for Afghanistan. The series follows servicemen and women at all levels - from teenage soldiers straight out of basic training, to battle hardened veterans coming back for extra training, Episode one: In this first episode, Jeremy is introduced to some of the school’s impressive fleet of vehicles and is taken for a spin in a Mastiff, the school’s newest recruits arrive and start their gruelling training, and Jeremy speaks to an instructor whose driving training saved his own son’s life in Afghanistan. The first piece of equipment that Jeremy is introduced to is the Mastiff two – the Rolls Royce of the army’s transport fleet. It’s one of the most heavily armoured vehicles in active service and over 300 of these highly protective trucks have been sent out to Afghanistan this year. Jeremy meets Sergeant Major Darren Hugill who drives him in a Mastiff and shows exactly what the vehicle can do. He says: “What we’re going to do now is we’re actually going to go down what’s called the ‘one in three’ – which is a 30 degree ascent… The one we’ve got here is the knife edge so basically it’s just straight up and then straight back down again.” The latest recruits joining 110 Squadron Royal Logistic Core have arrived at Leconfield for their driver training cours
Jeremy is with the Wolfhound crew as they take part in an evacuation exercise at the Defence School of Transport in Leconfield, East Yorkshire. He also finds out how raw recruits such as Private Connie Johnson are getting on.
The commanding officer of the squadron, Major John McBride, is due to leave Leconfield but he still manages to find the time to supervise the trainees as they take part in the monthly in-house competition called Eagles Challenge. Jeremy gets the chance to ride a quad bike and finds out how they are used on the front line for supplying ammunition and evacuating the hurt.
The trainees enter the final stages of their course at the Defence School of Transport in Leconfield, East Yorkshire, and learn how to use the vehicles in combat situations. Jeremy Kyle also takes the wheel of a Jackal, the pitbull of the fleet, and finds out what it takes to make the grade as a driver in the armed forces
Last in series. Jeremy Kyle joins one of the specialist instructors at Leconfield and learns how to drive on a skid pan, then takes to the road in a 26-tonne Oshkosh, the largest vehicle at the Defence School of Transport. He also catches up with some of the trainees who are now coming to the end of their courses, including Private Connie Johnson, who is due to retake her Category C truck test. Plus Private Candice Fitzgerald reads a poem on Remembrance Day and Jeremy hears a moving tribute from a mother who lost her son in Afghanistan in 2007.
