Lifelong Huddersfield pals set for tour of duty in Afghanistan

Oct 30 2009 by Sam Casey, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

THEY have known each other since nursery school.

Now friends James Cheesman and Shaune Maxwell are set to stand shoulder to shoulder on the frontline in Afghanistan.

The two soldiers, from the 3rd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment, fly tomorrow to Camp Bastion, the British Army’s base in Helmand Province.

They are due to deploy for a six-month tour, supporting the Coldstream Guards.

It will be the first time they have been involved in active operations together.

James, 26, a corporal, will be senior to 25-year-old Shaune, a private.

He said: “We’ve known each other for a long time, so I won’t boss him about as much as the others.”

James, of Ashes Lane in Almondbury, and Shaune, of St Paul’s Road in Kirkheaton, met when they were just three-years-old, at St Joseph’s nursery in Dalton.

From there they went to St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School together and All Saints Catholic High School in Bradley.

After leaving school at 16, James went to work for WT Johnson’s textile finishers on Wakefield Road in Moldgreen.