As I have said I have known Tony Viney for a number of years now and this was how we first met.

You have to admit the events behind his Queen’s Commendation for Bravery would make a good basis for a Hollywood blockbuster.

It is quite scary to think that he actually thought he was going to die and it must have been quite scary to have faced an angry mob.

Needless to say we worked on a number of stories over the years and not all of them were related to the military – and I am fairly sure I would have asked his advice before I headed out to Afghanistan.

A SOLDIER who faced an angry mob of thousands of people in Sierra Leone has been recognised for bravery.

Captain Tony Viney from Gristhorpe was serving with the Green Howards at the time and has been awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Bravery in the New Year’s Honours.

“To be honest I was quite surprised and reasonably shocked,” he said. “At the time I didn’t do it for that. I thought I was going to be in trouble for it – it was outside my mandate. Someone’s recognised what I have done which is a nice touch.”

The incident was in November 2005 while he was helping to train members of the country’s armed forces in Bo, Sierra Leone’s second city.

A prominent politician had been arrested and an angry mob was using this as an excuse to attack the police station, murder those inside and start an uprising in the African country.

The 28-year-old former Scarborough College cadet and university student who was a member of the territorial army in Scarborough picked up his Sgt Maj Pete Borthwick before driving back to the police station to deal with a crowd of demonstrators now estimated at between 5000 and 8000 people.

Capt Viney took the arrested politician away from the station to talk to the people and the hostility subsided.

However, as they were leaving town they were surrounded by a different mob which started climbing on and rocking their Land Rover.

“We got out, I saw my Sgt Maj get pulled into the crowd, I thought I had killed my Sgt Maj,” he said. “I had hold of the Land Rover thinking ‘I’ve messed up here, big time’.

“I was just waiting for the smack on the back of my head.

“They were spitting on my cheek. It must’ve been half a second and I thought this isn’t how it’s going to end.”

Capt Viney bundled his Sgt Maj and the politician back into the vehicle and they drove to a radio station on the outskirts of town.

The politician was able to record an appeal for calm which was repeatedly broadcast and the situation was defused.

Capt Viney is a jungle warfare instructor and enlisted six years ago.

He had previously served in Northern Ireland, Brunei, Afghanistan, Belize, Sierra Leone and Bosnia.

From the Scarborough Evening News on Monday, January 1, 2007.