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hi julie, im a mum of three, two girls age 19 and 7, my son is 17. Callum my son has been in the Navy for 8 months, he was 16 when he joined. I was worried like you are, he will be fine and you do get used to them being away. Coming on here helps, you can have a chat, you will meet everone else, there a friendly bunch lol... What age is your son. Im from glasgow, where are you from? take care dot x

Hi Dot, im in Crawley,Sussex. Rhys my son is 17 and based at Raleigh he is on week 2 now and seems to be enjoying it as far as i can make out. i also have a 19 year old daughter Natalie, who is missing him loads. we had a list of all the activities he is doing up to passing out so i keep updated with what he is doing each week. im very proud of him and i no he has wanted this for a long time.

Julie

Welcome to the boards. If you take a look at the 'Find a Friend' board you will find a smashing group of ladies.

Kim

hi julie, callums still training at raleigh, his training finishes in about 4 weeks. Hes training to be a chef, im also very proud, his passing out was a day to remember. As kim says take a look at find a friend, you will meet a lot more people there. dot x

Hi Dot, i wonder if your son knows my friend Debbie, she is training to be a chef at Raleigh as well, had her last exam last week and has another 12 weeks at Raleigh til she gets posted. Il look at the other site too, thanks

Hi
I am a new Navy mum. My son also started at Raleigh on 9th February. We had a very emotional send off at Paddington Station on Sunday 8th Feb. Simon is 19 but I do still worry. He is very happy though and thoroughly enjoying himself. Really proud of him and looking foward to passing out, maybe we will meet then Julie.

The NFF is excited to announce that at close of play today we will be uploading our new website to this address.

The process will take up to 24 hours; please bear with us during the transition period as you may experience difficulties accessing the website and message boards.

Thank you for your patience and we hope you enjoy the new website!

Hello, just to let you know that there is a comment on our breaking news section from the Minister of the Armed Forces, on the response to the Royal Anglian parade through Luton on Wednesday, which may be of interest to you.

Hi Theresa

I am also mum to a 19 year old son. He joined Raleigh 3 years ago next week. The going can get tough at times while they are at Raleigh but changes once they get through it. When Joe first joined I had visions of only seeing him once or twice a year and it certainly isn't like that at all. When not on deployment he is home every other weekend. He will be going away on a six month deployment in a couple of months and that will be strange.

If you join us on the Find a Friend message board there are plenty of us to keep you company and will try to answer any questions you may have.

Jacqui

Hi everyone, just to let you know we are experiencing major problems with the distribution of the Spring issue of Homeport and therefore it has not yet gone out to anyone! If you would like to read a copy online, go to the Homepage of our website and click on 'Homeport Magazine' which will take you to the lastest edition. Don't forget to check out the Reader Offer pages as we have tickets for the Army v Navy Rugby Match, a mini-cruise to Bilbao, a Red Letter Day and a Hetty Hoover to name a few. Send your entries to me at editor@nff.org.uk, remember to clearly mark which offers you would like to be entered for.

Sarah NFF

Hello everyone,

We are trying to gather some information on access to dentistry and would very much appreciate it if you could take a minute to answer the poll on the homepage of our website.

Thank you!

Article for ‘The Guardian’ - Can you help –

There is to be an article in the family section of ‘The Guardian’ on what it is like to be brought up in a forces family. The article talks to family members from all three services but still needs to understand the experiences of children growing up in a naval family.

They are particularly interested in speaking to boys, aged between 10-12 years, as they do not yet have enough information from this category.
The sorts of questions that will be asked are: In what ways do you keep in contact with the serving person while they are away? Are you close to other forces families? Do you go to a regular school or a forces school and what is it like?

The conversational interview will be done over the phone with parental consent. If you would like to take part please contact Jo Mears on: 013 0650 1830.