![\"Pauline](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/0_JS367434012JPG.jpg\")
Pauline Cole, who joined the army at 18, is angry at how veterans are being treated in Britain(Image: Humphrey Nemar for the Daily Mirror)<\/p>\nA blind ex-servicewoman, Pauline Cole, has said she is ‘very angry and very bitter’ after her pension credit was slashed when she received war injury compensationPauline Cole, who joined the army at 18, is angry at how veterans are being treated in Britain(Image: Humphrey Nemar for the Daily Mirror)<\/p>\n
A blind ex-servicewoman has said she is \u201cvery angry and very bitter\u201d after her pension credit was slashed when she received war injury compensation.<\/p>\n
Pauline Cole, who joined the army at 18, has seen her weekly pension credit drop from \u00a377 to \u00a311 because her compensation counts as income. It means she is barely better off with the \u00a380 weekly compensation award, which she receives for PTSD and damage to her skin during her army years.<\/p>\n
The furious 78-year-old said she won\u2019t be joining in next week\u2019s celebrations marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day. She hit out at the ongoing crisis of homelessness among veterans and said she herself struggles to get by after her pension credit was cut.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: After 70 years, MoD finally admits there ‘may have been’ radiation experiments on UK troops<\/a> \u201cI don’t think the \u2018Great\u2019 in Great Britain should be there anymore, because Great Britain is not Great Britain anymore,\u201d she said. \u201cIt’s just Britain over the way it treats its military personnel, its NHS<\/a> staff, its teachers, its doctors and normal people\u2026 It makes me very angry and very bitter.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms Cole suffers from two types of skin cancer due to time spent working in the sun when she was in the armed forces<\/a>. She also suffers from the \u201cmental scars\u201d of seeing \u201chorrific things\u201d including eight men being blown up in a Land Rover in front of her eyes in the former Crown Colony of Aden, which is now part of Yemen.<\/p>\n She lost her sight in one eye due to a stroke in 2013 and has since also begun to lose her sight in her other eye, due to complications related to her diabetes.<\/p>\n READ MORE: JOHN HEALEY: ‘We’ll stop the rot in armed forces housing with new charter’<\/a> On Wednesday, Keir Starmer<\/a> was confronted about her case during PMQs<\/a> by her MP Josh Babarinde, the Lib Dem MP for Eastbourne. As Ms Cole watched on from the Commons\u2019 public gallery, the Prime Minister thanked him for raising the \u201cimportant issue\u201d, adding: \u201cI pay tribute to Pauline for her service, and I will make sure that she gets the appropriate meeting that she wants and needs to discuss her specific case.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking to The Mirror<\/a> after PMQs, Ms Cole said she will now be pressing the PM\u2019s team for a one-on-one meeting in No10 to \u201creally thrash this out\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I’m worried about and why I want something done before I die – I’m hoping it’ll happen before I die – are all the veterans that were in Afghanistan<\/a> and Iraq<\/a> who were obviously taken out of the armed forces<\/a> because they’d been blown up or blinded or lost a leg or an arm,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen they collect a state pension, they would get a pension credit, and if they\u2026 go to a tribunal (to get compensation for their injury), when they’re 65, they’re not going to get any money, because it’s classed as a pension.\u201d<\/p>\n Be the first with news from Mirror Politics<\/p>\n BLUESKY: <\/strong>Follow our Mirror Politics account on Bluesky here<\/a>. And follow our Mirror Politics team here – Lizzy Buchan<\/a>, Mikey Smith<\/a>, Kevin Maguire<\/a>, Sophie Huskisson<\/a>, Dave Burke<\/a> and Ashley Cowburn<\/a>.<\/p>\n POLITICS WHATSAPP: <\/strong>Be first to get the biggest bombshells and breaking news by joining our Politics WhatsApp group here<\/a>. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you want to leave our community, you can check out any time you like. If you\u2019re curious, you can read our Privacy Notice<\/a>.<\/p>\n NEWSLETTER: <\/strong>Or sign up here to the Mirror’s Politics newsletter<\/a> for all the best exclusives and opinions straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/2_pauline_cole.jpg\")
A photo of Pauline Cole on duty at the switchboard in the paper in 1968 <\/p>\n![\"Pauline](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/2_pauline_cole2.jpg\")
Pauline said she was ‘angry’ about the way military personnel were treated in this country<\/p>\n![\"Pauline's](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/0_DM-HN-PENSIONER-PARLIAMENT02JPG.jpg\")
Pauline’s MP Josh Babarinde said ‘it’s a disgrace that our veterans are being treated in this way'(Image: Humphrey Nemar)![\"Pauline,](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/0_DM-HN-PENSIONER-PARLIAMENT04JPG.jpg\")
Pauline, photographed in Parliament, after watching her case be raised to Keir Starmer during PMQs(Image: Humphrey Nemar)<\/p>\n