Former Signaller, Martin Bashforth, 36 from Chorley in Lancashire.

I joined the Army straight from school back in July 2000, I'd done pretty well at school but further education wasn't really of any interest to me at the time, so Signaller Bashforth, Royal Signals Driver Lineman it was. My first posting was 30th Signal Regiment in the MT there, not much call for Linemen at a Satellite unit it seems so I settled into a life of painting spots on Land Rovers.

After a turn of good fortune and managing to get on the good side of my Regimental Sergeant Major I found myself with the offer of doing any course I wanted... Dog Handler! After completing the course and with the brilliant GSD Sabre I'd decided that I wanted to swap spots on Land Rovers for Dogs and so ended up in the MT at 204 Signal Squadron, 4th Armoured Brigade in Osnabruck or Osnatraz as everyone so lovingly called it, that didn't exactly go to plan...

There is a lot more to my military career than I can fit on this page so i'll end that part there with me driving out of the camp gates in 2006 for the final time, I wasn't happy with my trade and any requests to transfer fell on deaf ears, coupled with issues back at home it was simply my time, though as soon as I got through the camp gates I remember thinking "Bash, what have you just done?!", I had this thought for the next 11 hours of the final drive back to the UK and the next few weeks which led me to walking in the doors of my local Territorial Army unit, that then ended up taking up my weekends for quite a number of years from there.

Back home I didn't really have much of a clue what I wanted to do so ended up chasing the money, or at least trying to.. Satellite rigging and installations, vehicle assembly, sales, welder / piling engineer and then the inevitable stint as a HGV driver but I didn't really want to do any of it and certainly couldn't see a future carrying on thay way, one dead end job to another with everything being 'to tide me over for a while' which turned into the years passing by and more recently it started to dawn on me, I've got a lot of my working life ahead of me and wanted something more fulfilling that I felt passionate about and can actually see a real future for myself in. 

I'd signed up with CTP as wasn't really having any luck with the usual job hunting methods and wasn't willing to give up this time, suddenly up pops a position listed for Toyota, looking for someone with a passion for cars and wanting to work for a leading company that would offer back as much as an employee would put in, BINGO!! That's me, me and me! From this I was introduced to the team at Mission Motorsport who were running assessments for the Toyota program, I spent a day down at their Wantage HQ for the assessment , met some fantastic people and had a good look around some amazing cars including the GT-86 race cars being used at the Race of Remembrance and the truly stunning Jaguar F-Type SVR 'Poppy car'. 

Incredibly - I’m on the team for Race of Remembrance, and after the race weekend I'll be going back to my new day job at Vantage Toyota in Preston as a successful candidate in the soldiers / veterans to vehicle technicians program being run by Toyota GB. It has given me the opportunity to turn a hobby and passion into something that I'm now getting paid for, a great career with a fantastic company that comes with great prospects, an opportunity, that without this program I simply wouldn't have had, finally getting paid to do something I love. 

So I'll end by saying thank you to everyone that's involved in this program at Mission Motorsport, Toyota GB and Vantage Toyota, I just wish I'd found you sooner.