My name is John Cook (Cookie) and I started life as a pad brat in Carlisle in 1959, moving to Hohne in West Germany when I was 3 and then to Tidworth when I was 10

At 14 I became the youngest serving member of the British Army as a Band Boy with HQ Squadron Westminster Dragoons (RY in London) and 18 months later as a Chieftain Tank Driver with The Royal Hussars (PWO), I was the Regimental Photographer and a Regimental Orderly Room Clerk with RH and served in Germany, Canada, Northern Ireland and the UK

In 1986 I left to join The Royal Yeomanry for a further 6 years as the Officers Mess Manager leaving in 1991

Each year for the past 20 years, I have organised the Annual Reunion for the 11^th Hussars (PAO) (The Cherrypickers) and the Annual Veterans March at the London Cenotaph in November for the King’s Royal Hussars Regimental Association and it is from this that I found my inspiration and passion for bringing to life the horrors of conflict and my ’14 – 18’ series is just the start of my journey as a Powertex and mixed media artist

I have exhibited at both the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Mall Galleries in London