The Army is taking its recruitment roadshow to Edgware this weekend, as part of a London-wide drive to swell its ranks.

The event, on Saturday, is part of a whistle stop tour around nine areas of London in a bid to find the 15,000 new recruits needed by the service each year.

There will be displays of the latest military equipment and soldiers with a variety of specialisms will be on hand to explain their roles and experiences.

Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Meldon, Comm-ander of Regional Recruiting for London, said: “People don’t have a great deal of experience of the Army and we want to demistify it.

“What most people experience are the red jackets standing outside Buckingham Palace, or people getting shot at in the news, but nothing in between.”

He added: “What they don’t realise is that there are 147 different career streams and more than 1,000 jobs available in the Army.

“There are doctors, lawyers, vets — we like to say the only thing you can’t do is hair and beauty.

“It’s exciting and you can gain transferable skills.”

But he acknowledged that operations in Iraq and Afghanistan continued to dominate media coverage of the British Army — according to the BBC, 292 British soliders have been killed in the two conflicts combined.

“Afghanistan and Iraq are not safe places,” said Lt Cl Meldon.

“It’s a dangerous mission and people are getting hurt — but they’re getting hurt in London too.

“It does put some people off, particularly parents. But we operate in 38 countries around the world and in 36 of them there aren’t bullets flying and bombs going off.”

He said the roadshow would also address public misconceptions of the Army and its role in foreign policy.

He added: “A lot of people struggle to separate foreign policy, which is up to the Government, from the execution of foreign policy.

“They think it’s the Army’s respon- sibility, but all we’re doing is complying with the Government’s instructions.”

m The roadshow runs at the Territorial Army Centre, in Deansbrook Road, Edgware, from 12pm to 8pm.