Former soldier Ed Hall has witnessed the worst of war and terrorism. He talks to Ben Bentley about his quiet new life in Shropshire.

As an 18-year-old hippy, Ed Hall was not obviously cut out for a high-flying career in the Army. But by 23 he was the youngest ever British Army captain, in charge of hundreds of soldiers.

Later, he would be responsible for bringing home dead bodies from the Falklands and in charge of security outside the “greatest concentration of murderers in the world” ­ the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland.

Ed, a softly spoken man who now runs the Wroxeter Hotel near Shrewsbury, has rarely talked about his military past, his “Cold War warrioring” and the appalling human barbarism he witnessed in Bosnia.

His military career began with officer training at Sandhurst in 1974, and he soon took to commanding. With numerous tours under his belt with the Royal Pioneer Corps, he recalls the very real threat of invasion from the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and of heading up NATO manoeuvres in Europe which aimed to prevent such an attack.

“It’s hard to remember that we were genuinely expecting divisions of the Warsaw Pact and for Russian tanks to come across the border and destroy the free world as we know it.” Ed became a British Army captain on May 1, 1979, the day Margaret Thatcher came into office. He was 23.

Cold War exercises continued, but in April 1982 came news of the Falklands crisis in the South Atlantic Ocean.

Ed says: “I can remember the Sheffield being sunk and it was like the feeling when someone comes up and gives you a slap. You are just outraged. The sinking of British ships became more common, and that was the first realisation I had that it was not just an exercise to prevent conflict from happening.

Ed when based at The Maze prison

“Within two to three weeks of the hostilities I got orders and was sent to take part in the clear-up. It was pretty grim. Our job was to recover ammunition, primarily for water disposal by putting it in 45-gallon oil drums and sea dumping it, and to recover larger shells and mines and rocket launchers. We would destroy those or bring them back.”

He laughs as he adds: “We repatriated an exocet and sold it back to the French who had made it. At the same time, the Pioneers were responsible for recovering the British dead, either to be buried in Falkland Island cemeteries or for shipping back home. That was particularly grim and grisly.”

Meanwhile, back home the Northern Ireland troubles continued and on Ed’s next two-year tour he was in charge of security of Lisburn garrison and of discipline within the camp.

He recalls a “beautiful county undisturbed by terrorism” and the “remarkable routine” of day-to-day operations, although the threat from shootings, car bombs and improvise mortar attacks were very real.

More “uneventful” Cold War warrioring followed in Germany and by 1987 Ed had made the rank of Army Major. He was 31.

There followed worldwide detachments to the jungles of Belize during a territorial claim by Guatemala, and “sabre-rattling” operations in Jordan.

But as the early 90s gave way to first Gulf War, Ed was given the job nearer to home of guarding the Maze Prison in Belfast, which involved watching with machine guns from guard towers, preventing armed attacks on military positions and assisted break-outs of some of the world’s most dangerous killers.

He also witnessed first hand life inside the jail. “I walked in the Maze H-blocks and it was indescribably horrible. I knew there were people who would kill with their bare hands given half a chance. People with nothing to lose. You don’t carry out atrocities that these people carried out unless there’s something seriously psychologically wrong with you.”

Later, military life also saw him witness unspeakable acts of barbarism in war-torn Bosnia as crisis emerged with the weakening of the Communist system at the end of the Cold War. The genocide would ultimately see upwards of 100,000 civilians and soldiers killed and 1.8 million displaced.

Ed’s job was in commanding an aid supply route of humanitarian aid to enclaves of trapped refugees in Bosnia. He was shocked at just how quickly human beings could return to being animals in what he describes as “the collapse of civilisation”.

“It was truly horrible. It was a country that looked very much like Britain, say, or Switzerland. But civilisation had collapsed and certain people had returned to barbarism. When someone has a nice house and car and then, for all the trappings of civilisation, they resort to barbarism, that was shocking. It undermines your belief in humanity.” On the other hand, he came across “people with great humanity. People with nothing to offer but who would share their last crust with you”.

Looking back now, he adds: “It’s an area I’ve not ‘visited’ too often because it’s not an area I’m too comfortable with.”

Twelve months later, in 1994, Ed left the Army, going back to college to study a masters in human resources at Strathclyde University, which would ultimately lead him on a new career path.

He “gained a new perspective on all sorts of things”. Not least his view on being a soldier. Ed has the ultimate respect for each and every British soldier, but says: “It’s a bit like being a circus performer, dressed up in green with paint on your face. You are not normal. You are not in the real world.”

Fifteen years out of Army and aged 53, he still gets asked the question: Did you kill anyone? But he says it’s the wrong question.

“There’s nothing at all good about killing someone,”says Ed, who uses the current Afghanistan situation as an example.

“That Afghan, for example, is someone who might have a wife and family, possibly someone who got up in the morning and told that he had his whole lifetime ahead. And they did ­ but it was only 8 or 10 hours long. It is a horrible process. Soldiering is a huge examination.”

Of the moment of battle, however, he says: “There’s not a buzz like it, when someone is shooting at you . . . but it would be a wonderful world if it did not happen.”