Troll: My Life in Bomb Disposal
Justin ‘Troll’ Bell served in the British Army for 23 years, most of those as an EOD Operator – a bomb disposal expert.
This is his story of tours served in Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan – the adventures, the camaraderie, the hard truths and painful costs of a dangerous and stressful job.
But also the jokes, the pranks, and the stark humanity of a man who made ‘The Lonely Walk’ many, many times.
* * *
Justin J Bell joined the British Army in the late 1980s and quickly qualified as an Ammunition Technician within the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. He completed over 20 years’ service as an Army Counter Terrorism Bomb Disposal Operator seeing service in three major conflicts.
He commanded EOD operations on High-Threat tours in Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan; supporting over a decade of front line UK counter-terrorism activity including responding to the 2005 London bombings. He constituted part of the National Contingency Capability for dealing with weapons of mass destruction.
Justin supported discrete Foreign and Commonwealth Office tasks to various countries as part of a wider defence diplomacy programme, and finished his service as a Senior Explosive Ordnance Disposal Soldier responsible for the supervision and provision of multiple EOD teams in support of UK National Contingency Operations. During his service he received the Queen’s Gallantry Medal for his EOD activities, and was subsequently rewarded a second time on the Queen’s New Year Honours list on his retirement.
Identifying that the psychological well-being of EOD Operators was being largely ignored, he was instrumental in the implementation within EOD Units of the Trauma Risk Management programme originally instigated by the Royal Marines. He retired in 2009 to spend more time with his wife and children and pursue a career lecturing. He said he didn’t want to be ‘a father who doesn’t come home’.
Troll was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2017, caused, he used to joke, “by all the nasty shit I’ve handled,” during his time as an EOD operator. Through this final illness, his dignity and humour remained undimmed.
As his friend, and a writer myself, I rushed to collate his memoirs into a book that would make him proud. I didn’t quite make it in time, and Troll died in the summer of 2019.
Unsurprisingly, it was some time before his widow, Helen, felt able to resume the task of reading and editing these memoirs on his behalf. There are occasions when we’ve been unsure of the timeline and have done our best to arrange his memories as accurately as possible. No doubt we have not always got it right – and we’ve had to edit out a couple of the most coruscating and potentially libellous sections. If you had the privilege to meet or work with Troll, you’d know exactly what we mean.
Because through his words, his love of the army shines brightly, even as he paints the most vivid pictures of military life, with its rights and wrongs, failings and injustices, all depicted with stark truthfulness and dark humour.
He was my friend, and I miss him. I feel honoured to have known him.
He was 47 when he died, leaving his wife and two children. It is to them, his family after the military that he wished to dedicate this book.
His future was stolen, but his memories live on.
I originally published this book in 2021, but after discussions with Troll’s wife and family, we have been delighted to donated the copyright and proceeds of this book to Felix Fund – the UK Bomb Disposal Charity.
I’m greatly honoured to have published the memoirs of Justin ‘Troll’ Bell QGM.
He was a soldier in the British Army for 23 years, an expert in bomb disposal, for which he won the Queen’s Gallantry Medal. He was a husband and a father, and he was my friend.
We became friends when I started writing the play Later, After, and it was Justin’s expertise that made it so incredibly moving. You can see the theatrical trailer on the play’s page on this website.
Over the years, he sent me poems and writing he’d done about his time in the Army and how it affected him. When he became ill at the end of 2018, the race was on to collect all his work together and publish it. None of his friends believed that cancer would kill him, when two decades of terrorists couldn’t.
Just before Justin died in 2019, I was able to show him a paperback copy of his memoirs, but it was a rushed job and not as polished as I knew he would want it to be. It was two years before his widow and I felt able to face finishing the job.
I’m so glad we did.
