ONE day 10 Downing Street, the next Holyrood Palace … it’s been a busy round of engagements for one Royal Marine reservist.

Peter Roberts, from Hadfield, a colour sergeant with the Royal Marines Reserves, was part of a group of reservists and employers from the North West honoured at a Downing Street reception on Friday.

And on Tuesday he attended a garden party at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh, in recognition of his military service.

“Going to Number 10 was a very interesting experience and then to get an invitation to the garden party from Her Majesty was amazing,” said Peter  “At Number 10, the Prime Minister came over and had a chat with me for about two or three minutes.

“He asked me how things were, how the tours of duty had gone and what we’d done.  Number 10 is a lot bigger than it looks from the outside. It goes back a long way with rooms off to either side. We had drinks and canapes in the garden at the back, which is also big and is communal with Number 11. It must be at least 100ft by 30ft.”

Peter, 48, of Cross Street, works as an electrical supervisor at Manchester University. He started as an apprentice electrican before serving 10 years with the Royal Marines and then returning to the university.

Peter has notched up 22 years either with the Marines or in the Marine reserve forces. As a reservist he has been mobilised twice, each time for six months — once in 2003 to Iraq and in 2006/07, to Afghanistan.

“I decided to become a reservist as I missed the marines and it was totally different to what I was doing as a career,” he said. “The war in Iraq started in March 2003 and we went in as part of the Royal Marine commandos. We went in with the Americans from Kuwait and went to Basra and later in the tour ended up guarding gas and oil supply lines in Ramallah.

“We came under fire on one than one occasion, as we did in Afghanistan in 2006/07, again with the Royal Marine commandos, working with the Afghan National Army. We were mentoring them on the ground in Helmand, giving them equipment training in the Sangin valley.”