“I’m going to miss Lee for the rest of my life. When I was told he’d died I changed as a person and a part of me also died.”
28-year-old Nikki Scott had a recurring nightmare that her husband Lee, who was serving in Afghanistan, would be killed.
Almost twelve years on, during a recent podcast, Nikki talked to Catie Friend about the moment her nightmare became a reality, explaining to her young son that daddy wouldn’t be coming home, the lasting impact of Lee’s death and how she has created a charity for bereaved Forces children and young people that means so much to hundreds of military families up and down the country.
“Surreal” is how Nikki Scott, the founder of Scotty’s Little Soldiers, describes the day she was told her husband, Corporal Lee Scott, wouldn’t be returning home from Afghanistan. He’d been on tour for just six weeks when he was hit by an IED bomb and killed. He left behind his wife, Nikki and two young children, Kai and Brooke, who were just five years and seven months old at the time.
Nikki recently opened up about her experience with podcast host Catie Friend. During the interview, Nikki remembers the day she was told her husband had been killed in action and the impact of this on her young son. She also talks about her inspiration for Scotty’s Little Soldiers, how she made the decision to use her experience to benefit children just like hers and how the charity has developed over the last 10 years.
When asked by Catie about the day she was told Lee had been killed, Nikki recalls:
“I just knew something wasn’t right.”
When two men appeared at her door, she knew instantly that they were there to give her the news every military wife dreads. “It was just surreal” explains Nikki.
“Lee had been gone for six weeks, his toothbrush wasn’t in the bathroom, his cup wasn’t on the side, his washing had been done and put away. It took me so long to realise he wasn’t on tour.”
Nikki's first thought was for her children, but she had so much going through her head, as she explains to Catie:
“I just thought, this can’t be true! I’d had this nightmare every night for the past two weeks, I couldn’t believe it was happening, I was in complete denial. I just felt like, that’s it, that’s me, I’m done. I’m 28, this house is an Army house, I don’t even have a home. What am I going to do? Where am I going to go?”
Lee, Nikki, Kai and Brooke at Disney Land
Nikki’s son Kai was five years old at the time and she explains to Catie how all she could think about was how she was going to explain to him that his daddy wouldn’t be coming home. “There was so much going on” Nikki said.
“I thought, I have to tell Kai that his daddy’s not coming home. I knew it was going to absolutely shatter his world.”
Nikki explained to Catie that it was when Kai came home from school that day that it really hit her. She said:
“Kai came running in to the room with a spider he’d made out of a paper plate at school. He was just a completely normal little boy. He ran in to the room shouting, ‘mummy look what I made at school!’. I just broke down completely and I think that’s when it hit me.”
Discussing how she explained to Kai what had happened to his daddy, Nikki said:
“I wanted to be really straight with him, but I don’t think he understood a word of what I was saying. He knew I was upset and that something bad had happened to daddy, but he didn’t really understand.”
Nikki describes to Catie how Kai changed after that day, she said:
“He had really bad nights, he had awful nightmares but also didn’t want to go to sleep without me.”
It was nine months later, while on a family holiday, that Nikki recalls she saw Kai smile for the first time since his daddy’s death. Nikki said:
“That was my wake-up call, I thought, my god, what have I been doing? For nine months, I haven’t been living. Kai’s been in this world of depression and darkness and this is the first time I have seen him laugh.”
Kai on holiday
Nikki explains how this got her thinking about other children, like Kai, who had experienced the death of a parent who had served our country and had no support. This was the catalyst for her setting up Scotty’s Little Soldiers.
She explains:
“The support available was just for bereavement in general but our scenario seemed very different. I knew that we were going to have to grieve for Lee, but our lives would have to change completely. We’d have to leave home because it wasn’t ours, Kai would have to change schools and leave his friends behind and we’d have to leave the military community we’d become part of.”
Nikki reached out to a number of military widows about her idea for a charity, and they agreed that a support network for bereaved military children would definitely be well received.
Nikki explains:
“I said to my family I have this idea, I don’t have a clue how to do it, but I’m going to do it, because there is nothing like it out there and I want to support bereaved British Forces children and make sure they have the opportunity to have that break and smile like Kai did, so we set up the charity Scotty’s Little Soldiers, that’s how it all started.”
Nikki set up Scotty’s Little Soldiers in 2010, with the aim of providing respite breaks for bereaved Forces families. Now, over 10 years on, the charity does so much more. Nikki discusses with Catie how the charity has grown over the years and the family programmes it now offers bereaved Armed Forces children and young people up and down the country, including SMILES, SUPPORT, STRIDES and SPRINGBOARD.
Nikki explains:
“Everything we do always comes from what the need is, what our members need is so important”.
Brooke, Kai and Nikki
Although Nikki has now moved on with her life – having re-married and having two more children with her husband Joe, she explains to Catie that Lee is still a big part of her life.
“I’m going to miss Lee for the rest of my life” said Nikki. “Back then, when I was told he’d died, I changed as a person and a part of me definitely died.”
When asked how she and her family remember Lee, Nikki said:
“It’s taken time for us to find the right way to remember Lee and you just learn as you go, there’s no right or wrong you do what you feel is right for your family.”