A TERRITORIAL Army soldier who worked in field hospitals in Afghanistan has put his sketches of life at Camp Bastion on display.

Corporal Tony Green, 35, from Didcot, served with the Abingdon-based 202 Field Hospital at the main British base in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province between February and July this year.

When off duty, he made pen and ink drawings of scenes from the camp on blue airmail notes – known to troops as ‘blueys’ – which are given to soldiers to send letters home to family and friends.

A selection of his sketches are now on display at Oxford Town Hall, in St Aldate’s.

Working at Camp Bastion’s hospital, Cpl Green helped to unload stretchers bearing victims of roadside bombs and combat with the Taliban as they arrived for emergency medical treatment.

His pictures depict wounded troops arriving, soldiers recovering in intensive care and memorial services for fallen comrades.

One of his sketches simply lists the names of British soldiers who died during his time in Afghanistan.

Cpl Green, who grew up in Wantage and studied at North Oxfordshire College and School of Art, in Banbury, said: “Because of the sort of work we were doing, there wasn’t a lot we could write on the blueys without breaking confidentiality or talking about operations.

“I felt it would be more interesting to draw the stuff I saw going on in hospital and what the soldiers were doing.

“Together, they really show a patient’s clinical journey.

“We were very busy. It’s an environment when you see the best of your colleagues, and watching the medical people with their game faces on is astonishing thing. These are people I’ve know for years – and suddenly you see them dealing with very traumatic casualties and badly-injured people.”

Cpl Green, who is a manager at Rading’s Jobcentre when out of uniform, added: “You see a lot of stuff you don’t necessarily forget.

“I tended to steer away from the gore, because I didn’t want to be sensationalist.

“It’s very easy to draw that sort of thing, but it would upset people back at home – it’s none of their business and it’s not really honouring anybody to paint them in that situation.”

Prints of the drawings will be on sale during the exhibition, which runs until October 31, to raise money for the British Limbless Ex-Servicemen’s Association, which helps wounded soldiers.

The display can be viewed during normal opening hours at the Town Hall.

Cpl Green added said: “In terms of looking back, as a memory of Afghanistan, these sketches are as tangible as the photographs in my camera or the sand still in the bottom of my boots.”

In 2004, Cpl Greeen staged an exhibition at Wantage’s Vale & Downland Museum of drawings and paintings he made while serving in Kuwait and Iraq with the field hospital unit during the Gulf War in 2003.

lsloan@oxfordmail.co.uk