We Will Remember: PC Beaumont's Lifetime of Service

A Lifetime of Protecting What Matters

PC Beaumont is an Authorised Firearms Officer Counter Terrorism with the Ministry of Defence Police.

Matt’s day-to-day role as an AFO CT involves armed patrols and protection of the site. His presence ensures the safety of the UK's Defence community, capabilities and assets. His work protects not just the site itself but plays a vital part in the wider defence of the nation.

His whole life has long been shaped by service, first his family's, and then his own.

A Family Steeped in Service

PC Beaumont comes from a deeply patriotic family, with numerous relatives who served during the two World Wars, including his late father, who served in the RAF at the end of the Second World War, stationed at RAF Marham. Also, his late uncle, who served with The King's Shropshire Light Infantry in Normandy and Africa.

"Being patriotic isn't something I had to learn, it was passed down to me through my family's service in both World Wars," he says.

From Cadet to Constable

PC Beaumont's own military journey began young. While at school, he was a member of the Combined Cadet Force, an experience he thoroughly enjoyed.

"The Combined Cadet Force was where it all started for me. I left school at 16 and never looked back," he says.

At just 16, straight after leaving school, he joined the Army as a boy soldier in the Junior Leaders Regiment at Bovington, Dorset.

After completing basic training, he moved to Catterick for trade training, qualifying as a Main Battle Tank driver and mechanic on Chieftain Mark 10 tanks. From there, his service took him further afield still, to Hohne in Germany, where he served with The Queen's Own Hussars. He went on to complete a six-month tour in Cyprus as part of the United Nations and assisted with vehicle and kit preparation ahead of the Iraq conflict in early 1991.

That same sense of duty never left him. Decades on from Bovington and Hohne, PC Beaumont carries it still, trading a tank for a truncheon, and continuing his service with the Ministry of Defence.

For Those Who Never Came Home

Each year, he remembers the friends and colleagues he lost during his military service in the Army, names and faces he carries with him long after the uniform came off.

"I make sure I remember my friends and colleagues who didn't come home. I also think of my father and uncle, and everything their service meant. It's the least I can do," he says.

Still today, he regularly visits the National Memorial Arboretum, laying poppy wreaths during the Remembrance period, both for his old regiment and for the Ministry of Defence Police.

"Laying wreaths at the National Memorial Arboretum each year means a lot to me, for my old regiment, and now for this Force too," he says.

For PC Beaumont, Remembrance is personal in every direction: colleagues lost in his own service, and relatives whose service came before he was ever born, all woven into a single thread of family and duty.

A Lifetime Shaped by Duty

From a cadet at school, to a soldier at 16, to a tank driver in Germany, to armed policing today, his life has been defined by one constant: service. It is that same sense of duty that now drives his work protecting with purpose for the Ministry of Defence Police, and his commitment each November to make sure those who served before him, and alongside him, are never forgotten.