Name: Private Lives. Part 3. | BBC Learning English.
Uploaded: 2026-02-26T12:55:52.000Z
Duration: 7 min 18 s
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Adverbs of manner

I would describe myself as a keen, well motivated person who's keen and eager to do well, always ready to give 300% and expect exactly the same back from my superiors and my peers.

Transition words & phrases

However, you know, I still serve the Majesty of the Queen and I'm British in private lives.

He's a colour sergeant in the British Army.

Lawrence is 33 years old and he was born in Kilmarnock, a large town on the west coast of Scotland.

When he was 15, Lawrence left school and began work as a joiner, a carpenter.

But it wasn't long before he decided to join the army and he joined a regiment called the Scots Guards.

Three years ago, he achieved his present rank of color sergeant.

As we'll discover, Lawrence is very committed to his career in the army and we'll hear him talk about how his career affects his family life.

1st Colour Sergeant Lawrence Kerr remembers the day when the young joiner decided he wanted to be a soldier.

I was walking up to the baker's shop to have my lunch and walked past the careers office and all of a sudden had a thought, you know, maybe the life as a joiner wasn't for me.

And I wanted to, you know, spread my wings, if you like, get out of, you know, a normal, mundane sort of life in the west coast of Scotland.

So I decided then, at 16 years old, that I thought I'd give the army and especially the Scots Guards, a go.

Giving the army a go has given Lawrence the chance to travel.

He's worked in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Canada, the United States of America, and

But while he was working in England, he met dawn, who's now his wife, and

Often when Lawrence is sent on a tour of duty in Britain or overseas, his family go and live where he's working.

But on some tours of duty, Lawrence goes alone and he might be separated from his family for up to six months at a time.

So being in the army means living on the move and everyone in the family has to be adaptable when he's away.

Lawrence admits he misses his family very much.

I'm married to my wife, dawn, and I've got two daughters, Nicola and Natasha.

It takes a certain kind of person in the army because it's so unpredictable what you're going to be doing next.

Sometimes you've got to move house maybe up to three times in the space of three years, which does put a hell of a lot of Pressure on the family, the wife and the children.

But like they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder.

At the moment, Color Sergeant Lawrence Kerr works in London.

He's in charge of some of the training of the Scots Guards.

The Scots Guards is one of seven regiments who, as well as working as soldiers, also guard royal residences such as Buckingham palace, the permanent London home of the royal family.

Guarding a royal residence is known among the soldiers as stag duty, and

when one guard of soldiers comes to the end of a shift, it's relieved by a new guard.

This ceremony, very popular with visitors to London, is called the Changing of the Guard.

Colour Sergeant Lawrence Kerr did many shifts of stag duty in the early days of his career.

Well, my main memories of stag duty, whether it be Buckingham palace or anywhere else, was the very first one I'd done when I was about 19 years old, just having come back from Hong Kong, really looking forward to it, standing out there, but

at the same time really worried, thinking, oh, God, the Queen is going to come in.

Colour Sergeant Lawrence Kerr enjoys family life at home in the house just south of London.

His wife and daughters love watching soap operas on television.

His daughters, aged 16 and 14, enjoy Australian Soap operas best, like Home and Away and Neighbours.

His wife prefers British soaps like EastEnders, set in the East End of London, and

Coronation street, set in Manchester, a large city in the north of England.

They're absolutely mad on the imported Australian soap operas that's on show in the UK at the moment.

Home and Away and Neighbours and the like.

more British soap operas, Coronation street and EastEnders, as opposed to the Australian, She's a soap opera fanatic.

Both EastEnders and Coronation street are about the experiences, especially the private troubles, of communities of working class people.

Colour Sergeant Lawrence and his wife are currently planning a summer holiday.

They're going to rent a powerboat and mess about on the Norfolk Broads in the east of England, where there are lovely waterways winding through beautiful flat countryside.

This year in July, myself and the wife have decided that for the holiday this year we're going to leave her two children with her mother and father and just the two of us are going to go and hire a cruise liner on the Norfolk Broads and mess about in the river for a week.

Norfolk is where my wife's family come from.

It is flat as a pancake, Beautiful green, green everywhere lovely waterways.

So it's something we've always meant to do, and we're going to do it this year.

And to end the program, Lawrence looks back on 17 years in the army and how the army has given him educational qualifications that life outside in civilian street would not have done well.

I was a bit of a rebel, you know, I left school with the ability to do well, but

qualification wise, I didn't get any because I wasn't interested, you know.

But having joined the army, you know, it's matured me over the years immensely.

And the qualifications that I've got now, you know, there was no way on earth, I think, if I did stay in civilian street, that I would have had the educational qualifications that I have now.