Ross Noble's secret trip to rally the troops

Dec 27 2009 by Coreena Ford, Sunday Sun

SOLDIERS serving abroad certainly had a merry crisp-mas . . . thanks to funnyman Ross Noble.

The Cramlington-born comedian, 33, jetted to Afghanistan to bring some festive cheer to our boys by putting on a special stand-up show just for them.

And Ross also took an unusual present out with him for the armed forces . . . several boxes of Doritos crisps.

The former Cramlington High School pupil, who now lives with his wife on a farm in Australia, revealed his trip on the social networking website Twitter.

He originally told those who “follow” his regular updates that he was going sailing for a while and would only be online when he was “in port”.

However, several days later, he left a message – known as a “tweet” – to say he was actually in Afghanistan, but could not reveal exactly where he was for security reasons.

He said: “Hi guys this is a quick one, I am not at sea but in Afghanistan, Can’t tell you where I am but back soon.”

A few days later he was back on his Twitter page.

“Hi guys I am back from Afghanistan. Big hi to everyone I met over there, stay safe,” he said.

“Sorry, the sailing thing was a cover story. And yes I was trying to cheer up our side. The Taliban just don’t really get my stuff.

“I think it was a spelling mistake and they thought Ross Kemp was coming.

“I think I might have met the hardest bloke ever.

“He was shot, had the bullet removed then, still high on morphine, came and watched the show.”