Good News from the Middle East 2:

There is still good news to report amongst the tragedy.

Flight Lieutenant Sam Smithson is a pen-pushing lady with a difference. In her spare time, the personnel manager is teaching the locals, both men and women, judo.

Sam, who comes from Accrington in Lancashire, started judo at the tender age of four and competed at National level from the age of 12, won her first national title at 14 and was first capped as a senior international in 2001. She remained on the GB squad until 2004. Throughout her 16 years competing at national and international level Sam won the British title three times and was a member of the silver medal-winning GB team at the 2003 European Championships. She is captain of the women’s RAF and Combined Service Judo teams and led her RAF colleagues to victory four times in the inter-services championships. She ran a children’s judo club at RAF Benson before deploying out to Afghanistan.

Human resources departments will never quite seem the same again.