There are emotional scenes tonight at RAF Honington. The Air Force WAGs say goodbye to their men, who are leaving for a tour of duty guarding Kandahar air base in Afghanistan.

But whether the girls left at home will be reassured by this new documentary series about life at Kandahar is doubtful – now not only do they have the Taliban to worry about, there’s the Thai massage parlour on the base to occupy their waking thoughts.

When one of the new arrivals describes the surprisingly well-equipped Kandahar as being like a summer camp, he’s right in some respects.

There’s American football, ice hockey (without the ice), a pizza bar that’s open till 2am and a weekly market where you can go to be ripped off by the locals.

In fact, everything about this series – from Dexter Fletcher’s jokey, blokey voiceover to a lengthy report on Kandahar’s Strongest Man contest – seems designed to distract us from the serious purpose of the troops’ presence.

But all those jets, bombers and unmanned reconnaissance planes on the base aren’t simply elaborate fairground rides, and occasionally the war is allowed to intrude on proceedings. As the new boys make their first, nervous mission outside the wire, pilot Richard Hillard takes to the air in a Harrier GR9 jump jet laden with rockets and bombs weighing over 2,000lb.

His mission is to take some aerial photos – until he gets a call that the ground troops are under attack...

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