(now) Lance Corporal Beharry

London, England -- Fame and honour have come at a terrible price for Pte Johnson Beharry, the young soldier from Grenada who was awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest award for valour by the Queen last year.

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph, he reveals for the first time that he is in constant pain from the war injuries he received in Iraq when rescuing fellow soldiers from his burning armoured personnel carrier.

He also says that his days of active service are at an end and that his personal life has been overshadowed by family feuding. Pte Beharry, 27, of the Princess of Wales' Royal Regiment, twice cheated death in acts of exceptional bravery when his Warrior tank was hit by rocket-propelled grenades in two ambushes in 2004.

Exposed to enemy fire, with his hatch blown away, his communications gone and his periscope shattered, he led his five-vehicle convoy to safety then clambered on to the red-hot metal to save colleagues, including his commanding officer.

When he went to Buckingham Palace, with his wife, Lynthia, to collect the VC, the Queen told him that the injuries inside would take the longest to heal, he reveals.The Queen's words were prophetic. Although his marriage was already on the rocks, Pte Beharry said, he had yet to discover both the down side of fame and the full extent of his physical and mental injuries.

Some members of his extended family, both in Britain and the Caribbean, had plagued him with requests for help, he said. Until now, he has not responded to their accusations in newspaper reports that he has become aloof and too grand for them.

"Everyone thinks that because I receive the Victoria Cross, I receive a wall of money," he said. "They expect me to give them whatever they ask for. But the Victoria Cross is just a medal.

"They treat me like I owe them something. All they can think about is themselves and what they can get." Several members of the family have circulated stories that Pte Beharry, puffed up by his honour, deserted his home-loving wife for a striking Grenadian, Tamara Vincent.

Pte Beharry says the reality is that the marriage was already over: his wife did not write to him when he was serving overseas and did not spend much time by his bedside when he was recovering from brain surgery. Miss Vincent, 24, said: "He is a wonderful person, loving and caring.

"A lot of people try to grab him. He can't take the pressure and the stress." Pte Beharry's skull was shattered by the blasts and he still suffers blinding pain in his head, his back and his shoulder. "I take painkillers but they don't touch the pain," he said.

His brain injuries have altered his easy-going personality and left him short-tempered and quick to take offence. So he stays at home rather than risk "getting into trouble" in clubs or bars.

Two years on, he is still having treatment. He said that doctors could not tell him when - or if - he would get better. Pte Beharry is now in an unusual position: superiors salute him but he has no job; he is on the Army payroll but without a role. Flashbacks from the war wake him at night and he cannot get back to sleep.

He cannot read more than one or two pages without getting angry. The pressure to live up to an ideal is difficult, he said. "Everyone forgets the old person. They see this great person and they expect me to be that person. It's hard to live to please everyone."

Pte Beharry was one of eight children brought up in a two-room hut in Grenada. He moved to Britain when he was 19 and worked on building sites. By joining the Army, he reversed a slide into drink and soft drugs and subsequently discovered an aptitude for driving the 25-ton Warrior vehicles.
In his remarkable book, Barefoot Soldier, to be serialised from tomorrow in The Sunday Telegraph and The Daily Telegraph, he says that he now wants to show how disadvantaged young people can turn their lives around.

Asked whether there was ever a moment when he wished he were an unknown soldier again without his VC, Pte Beharry replied: "I am proud of it, but you don't get something like this for free. You get it and survive with the pain - or you get it and die."