LANCASHIRE lads from a local TA unit have been braving gunfire in Afghanistan and Hungary this week.

Around 40 troops from the Lancastrian and Cumbrian Volunteers (LCV), including four from Preston, are in Afghanistan helping defend Kabul airport.

And some of their colleagues from Kimberley Barracks, Deepdale Road, Preston, are on exercise in Hungary working with NATO soldiers.

While they are away, their families are eager to hear of news of them. Katie Curzon, girlfriend of 24-year-old Private Jack Owens, currently serving in Afghanistan, said: "He's phoned a few times saying what he is getting up to -- that he's alive and hasn't stepped on a land mine!"

When he is not on duty with the army, Pte Owens is a community support worker from Ashton. Katie, 20, said: "He says it is a completely different world. I was worried when I heard about an attack. It missed them by about three miles, but I hadn't realised there was still a danger."

Pte Owens is working with Pte Stuart Garnett, 21, of New Longton, Pte Paul Thompson, 31, from Tarleton, and Corporal Gill, a Blackpool-based soldier who also attends the Preston TA centre.

A hundred LCV troops are on exercise on the plains of Western Hungary on a two-week exchange, codenamed Exercise Hungarian Express.

They have been flying in helicopters; driving eight-wheel armoured vehicles made originally for the Moscow police; and testing the weapons of Hungary's First Light Cavalry Regiment.

Corporal Martin Bellingham, 38, an holistic therapist from Leyland said: "Language was a problem at first, but I now find it much easier to understand their tactics."