Civilian life beckons for top officer

The most senior Army officer in the Midlands' last working day of military service will coincide with the anniversary of the day The Green Howards, his former regiment, landed on the beaches at Normandy on D-Day in 1944.

Major General Andrew Farquhar CBE, general officer commanding the fifth division, will bow out of the Army on June 6 after 35 years.

He has spent the last three years of his career at Copthorne Barracks, in Shrewsbury, from where he has headed the administrative and operational control of some 19,000 regular and reserve troops.

The fifth division spans the whole of Wales, the whole of the West and East Midlands and central eastern England to the east coast including Essex, Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire.

General Farquhar, aged 54, who is to make his new home near Newport in Shropshire, said: "I have found every element of the community has been hugely supportive of me and the division over the last few years.

"While the Army is often in the media headlines because of operations at home and abroad I think the future is assured and with the continuing support of the community it can only go from strength to strength," he added.

General Farquhar says he, wife Alison, a GP, and his four children, so enjoyed their time in Shropshire they decided to make Newport their home.

"I am looking forward to spending time as part of the local community," he added.