{"id":845,"date":"2025-11-23T14:15:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T14:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/badvibes.live\/?p=845"},"modified":"2025-11-23T14:15:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T14:15:00","slug":"stalked-by-a-suicide-bomber-life-as-the-youngest-ever-female-war-artist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/badvibes.live\/?p=845","title":{"rendered":"Stalked by a suicide bomber \u2013 life as the youngest ever female war artist"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Charlie Calder-Potts had always been adventurous. After falling in love with the\u00a0Middle East<\/a>\u00a0in her twenties as she travelled through\u00a0Lebanon<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Syria<\/a>, she was desperate to tick\u00a0Afghanistan<\/a>\u00a0off her list.<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019d read about it and wanted to explore the mountainous area. I was also fascinated by the way throughout history we\u2019ve attempted and failed to take control of the region,\u2019 Charlie tells Metro.<\/p>\n

A successful artist in\u00a0London<\/a>, she came up with a novel way to achieve her dream by writing to as many different Army regiments as she could find, asking to be embedded with the British troops to experience the country on the ground, as a war artist. The role would see her documenting people, places and experiences connected to conflict \u2013 rather than the fighting \u2013 through a range of media.<\/p>\n

\u2018I didn\u2019t know anyone in the army at the time and had never experienced war. So I thought becoming a war artist would provide insight. At 26, I was young enough to be relatively ignorant and probably a bit braver than I would be now,\u2019 Charlie, now 40, adds.<\/p>\n

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When she got a letter from the 9th\/12th Royal Lancers with an invitation to bring her on a tour, Charlie was over\u00a0the moon<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 and also \u2018a little frightened\u2019.<\/p>\n

When she told her parents of the plan, she admits they \u2018were not delighted\u2019 that she took on the mission, but with adventurous siblings and a background of living all over the world, they couldn\u2019t help but be supportive as Charlie took on the role of the youngest ever female war artist commissioned by the British Army.<\/p>\n

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After a training camp in Dorset and her first ride in a Chinook helicopter, Charlie packed her camera and sketchbooks and flew with the British Army in 2013 to Camp Bastion, Lashkargah, the main hub for British operations during the Afghanistan conflict.<\/p>\n

\u2018It was very surreal \u2013 the camp was the size of Reading and Take That had performed there the week before I went,\u2019 remembers Charlie. \u2018It was very weird because there was a Costa Coffee and you would get tokens to spend there. But it was surrounded with wire and felt like a prison in a lot of ways. You\u2019re desperate to get out, but after a couple of days, you\u2019re desperate to get back in to feel that security and safety again.\u2019<\/p>\n

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Just as Charlie arrived, the Government announced that British troops were being withdrawn from Afghanistan, meaning many of the soldiers were just waiting to go home.<\/p>\n

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\u2018As well as those being out on the front line there were also people whose jobs were to remain in Camp Bastion for the entirety of their six month tour counting out ammo boxes with no reprieve. So there was a sense of danger, but also so much boredom,\u2019 she explains.<\/p>\n

After going through mine detection training, Charlie was able to visit bases around the region, Kabul and the mountains beyond, where she would spend time observing and taking photographs.<\/p>\n

Looking back, she appreciated the chance to see the beauty of the region on helicopter trips.<\/p>\n

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\u2018It was very hard to marry up what was happening when you\u2019re watching a beautiful sunset from an observer tower, surrounded by barbed wire and with the sound of gunfire in the distance,\u2019 she says.<\/p>\n

\u2019Outside of the camp, it was like looking at everything through a screen \u2013 either from the other side of barbed wire or from a bulletproof vehicle window.\u2019<\/p>\n

One image Charlie captured was of a man holding a bunch of helium balloons that soared over the landscape: \u2018It provided a slight feeling of hope, which we know now in hindsight was overly optimistic. \u2018It was taken from behind barbed wire yet it was such a normal thing in a wartime environment. It\u2019s that contrast.<\/p>\n

\u2018You\u2019re always reminded that these are normal people trying to live their lives and that everybody should get the chance to do that.\u2019<\/p>\n

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She also salvaged metal from army vehicles and ammunition casing and\u00a0etched photography on top combined with oil painting.\u00a0<\/a>\u2018I was literally working on a piece of history, documenting people who were part of that,\u2019 Charlie explains.<\/p>\n

To deal with the heat, Charlie would wear thin clothing in layers and can still remember the exhaustion she felt from the heat, along with the dust and the weight of the body armour.<\/p>\n

\u2018It was so heavy \u2013 I don\u2019t know how soldiers managed with their ammunition and everything else on their backs,\u2019 she says.<\/p>\n

At night in camp, she would sleep in the women\u2019s quarters \u2013 sometimes alone \u2013 in a sleeping bag on a camp bed in a tent. But there weren\u2019t always separate facilities, so she had to put up a message to warn people when she was washing.<\/p>\n

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One one base, Charlie found herself the only woman out of around 100 men, but says she always felt so well-looked after. \u2018People were grateful for the opportunity to share their experiences. I made some good friends out there. Everyone just wanted to talk to me about their girlfriends and their wives and how much they miss their kids.\u2019<\/p>\n

She saw people counting down the days until they could be reunited with their family, and the joy with which they received care packages from home full of Mars Bars and jars of Marmite.<\/p>\n

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\u2018Politically, I hadn\u2019t agreed with the UK being in Afghanistan but I came away with real respect for the people out there.You can never understand a situation until you\u2019re in it,\u2019 she explains.\u00a0 \u2018They were living away from their families, potentially losing their life, losing their limbs, risking PTSD. And I had a huge amount of respect for how they looked after each other and really tried to protect each other.\u2019<\/p>\n

Charlie\u2019s\u00a0most terrifying encounter didn\u2019t occur until she was getting ready to come home, traveling with army personnel in a four-by-four from the capital back to Helmand towards the end of her month-long tour.<\/p>\n

\u2018Everybody was deathly silent in the car. And that was not normal. I could tell something was up, but I didn\u2019t know what was going on. It was a quiet, calm anxiety. No-one was panicked \u2013 it was just \u2013 stillness,\u2019 she remembers.<\/p>\n

\u2018When I got to the airport, they told me they had intercepted Taliban radio to find out a suicide bomber was aiming for our convoy vehicles. I was made very aware of the dangers before I went out there, but at the same time, I was pleased I didn\u2019t know exactly what was going on when it was happening. That journey was only half an hour but it felt like forever.\u2019<\/p>\n

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While that was to be Charlie\u2019s only tour as a war artist, she has spent a career visiting conflict zones in\u00a0Iraq<\/a>\u00a0and Syria, collaborating with the British Arts Council in Iran and working in refugee camps, but her life is quite different now.<\/p>\n

Having had two children, she is less likely to be found in Europe than in her local Herefordshire woodland, foraging from plants and seeds from which to make paint.<\/p>\n

She has also recented worked with\u00a0War Child in the Sound & Vision<\/a>\u00a0exhibition, providing work inspired by the lyrics of Kate Bush.<\/p>\n

Now, she is now documenting more peaceful work, collecting soil, rock and oak apple galls from which she can make pigment in the same way as ancient artists from Mesopotamia.<\/p>\n

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It is part of a new project based on medieval medical manuscript called the\u00a0Tacuinum sanitatis<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 a handbook on health and well-being written in the 11th century in Baghdad in Arabic and later translated into Latin and distributed around Europe.<\/p>\n
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\u2018I have a huge love for traditional techniques and the way they link us together. I\u2019ve followed the silk road through my career, and I love how many ideas have been shared because of trade.<\/p>\n

\u2018The\u00a0Tacuinum sanitatis<\/em>\u00a0says the most important things to stay well are herbal remedies, breathing, exercise and mental health. Just like they are today. I love that these ideas bring us all together in a modern setting and speak to us about the essence of being human.\u2019<\/p>\n

You can donate to War Child, who support children caught in conflict zones around the world, at\u00a0<\/em>warchild.org.uk<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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  Charlie Calder-Potts had always been adventurous. After falling in love with the\u00a0Middle East\u00a0in her twenties as she travelled through\u00a0Lebanon\u00a0and\u00a0Syria, she was desperate to tick\u00a0Afghanistan\u00a0off her list. \u2018I\u2019d read about it and wanted to explore the mountainous area. I was also fascinated by the way throughout history we\u2019ve attempted and failed to take control of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t