in those first five weeks started with a rude awakening at the deathly early time of 5.15, an hour when only bakers, milkmen and people going on skiing holidays ought sensibly to be awake. I would painfully extricate myself from bed and my first action of the day was to switch on my iron.
Our beds comprised a simple single iron bed frame with plain wooden headboard, firm mattress and army-issued bedlinen of rough white cotton sheets and scratchy woollen blankets. All this had to be carefully ironed and crease free each day, then the bed made with meticulous exactness for the morning inspection.Folding angled ‘hospital corners’, turning down the sheet and tightly tucking it in, no evidence of the bed having been slept in was to remain, not a stray hair on the pillow nor a crinkle in the sheets. Many people slept on the floor for good reason, but with sleep at such a premium and bed being one of few luxuries, I persisted in ironing my sheets each morning, cutting corners by leaving them still on the bed as I did so. This went disastrously wrong one morning for one of the girls as she sleepily dropped her blistering hot iron onto her bare foot.
At 5.25 we were to be lined up in the main corridor of our Platoon Lines in alphabetical order, me sandwiched between Gill and Gray, with a full litre water bottle for the daily ‘water parade’. This would then commence on the arrival of SSgt Cox at 5.30, when we would tunelessly sing the national anthem and then drink the entire litre of water, choking and spluttering it down, so that at a completely inopportune moment later in the morning we would all be bursting for the loo. Over the weeks variety was introduced to this morning service as we were required to learn all six verses of the British national anthem and those too of our foreign cadets (Nepalese before breakfast is especially demanding).
Then, with the Queen sent ‘happy and glorious’ by our cats’ chorus, we were dismissed in a hurried panic of dressing gowns and slippers to shower, dress and race to breakfast. The boys were also required to squeeze the nuisance of shaving into these precious few minutes and those who had once proudly cultivated premature sprigs of stubble at fourteen were cursing as the baby-faced blonds had grace. At Sandhurst the men must be clean-shaven at all times, including even when in the field on exercise, and stringent stubble and sideburn rules are applied. If facial hair is your preference then the Navy is the service for you.
Breakfast was a swift moment at the trough, in which we had to consume as many calories as possible in the allotted four minutes to sustain us through the morning of standing to attention in thefreezing cold. Then we all traipsed outside into the darkness for another utterly bizarre Sandhurst ritual: ‘Areas’.
Areas involves a litter sweep of an allocated part of the Academy grounds, and Eleven Platoon’s area was the western side of Old College Parade Square stretching all the way down to the tennis courts. As a platoon we were required to walk methodically around our area and collect any unsightly litter and dispose of it; except that it was always dark at this ungodly early hour and this was Sandhurst so in fourteen weeks I never once found anything on the parade square other than a fallen leaf. It was a completely pointless activity and characteristic of many duties we performed at the Academy.
Then after this the cleaning began.
Most mornings were room-inspection mornings and this included the Platoon Lines too. Some highly organized OTC keen-bean had divided up the cleaning tasks in the common areas and created a rota of ‘block jobs’. Operating in a three-week rotation, I escaped surprisingly well, being only required to polish the brass on the inside of the main door, the outside of the main door and then sweep the central corridor. To my great relief, my name was not in the rotation to clean the showers of stray hairs nor scrub the
Our beds comprised a simple single iron bed frame with plain wooden headboard, firm mattress and army-issued bedlinen of rough white cotton sheets and scratchy woollen blankets. All this had to be carefully ironed and crease free each day, then the bed made with meticulous exactness for the morning inspection.Folding angled ‘hospital corners’, turning down the sheet and tightly tucking it in, no evidence of the bed having been slept in was to remain, not a stray hair on the pillow nor a crinkle in the sheets. Many people slept on the floor for good reason, but with sleep at such a premium and bed being one of few luxuries, I persisted in ironing my sheets each morning, cutting corners by leaving them still on the bed as I did so. This went disastrously wrong one morning for one of the girls as she sleepily dropped her blistering hot iron onto her bare foot.
At 5.25 we were to be lined up in the main corridor of our Platoon Lines in alphabetical order, me sandwiched between Gill and Gray, with a full litre water bottle for the daily ‘water parade’. This would then commence on the arrival of SSgt Cox at 5.30, when we would tunelessly sing the national anthem and then drink the entire litre of water, choking and spluttering it down, so that at a completely inopportune moment later in the morning we would all be bursting for the loo. Over the weeks variety was introduced to this morning service as we were required to learn all six verses of the British national anthem and those too of our foreign cadets (Nepalese before breakfast is especially demanding).
Then, with the Queen sent ‘happy and glorious’ by our cats’ chorus, we were dismissed in a hurried panic of dressing gowns and slippers to shower, dress and race to breakfast. The boys were also required to squeeze the nuisance of shaving into these precious few minutes and those who had once proudly cultivated premature sprigs of stubble at fourteen were cursing as the baby-faced blonds had grace. At Sandhurst the men must be clean-shaven at all times, including even when in the field on exercise, and stringent stubble and sideburn rules are applied. If facial hair is your preference then the Navy is the service for you.
Breakfast was a swift moment at the trough, in which we had to consume as many calories as possible in the allotted four minutes to sustain us through the morning of standing to attention in thefreezing cold. Then we all traipsed outside into the darkness for another utterly bizarre Sandhurst ritual: ‘Areas’.
Areas involves a litter sweep of an allocated part of the Academy grounds, and Eleven Platoon’s area was the western side of Old College Parade Square stretching all the way down to the tennis courts. As a platoon we were required to walk methodically around our area and collect any unsightly litter and dispose of it; except that it was always dark at this ungodly early hour and this was Sandhurst so in fourteen weeks I never once found anything on the parade square other than a fallen leaf. It was a completely pointless activity and characteristic of many duties we performed at the Academy.
Then after this the cleaning began.
Most mornings were room-inspection mornings and this included the Platoon Lines too. Some highly organized OTC keen-bean had divided up the cleaning tasks in the common areas and created a rota of ‘block jobs’. Operating in a three-week rotation, I escaped surprisingly well, being only required to polish the brass on the inside of the main door, the outside of the main door and then sweep the central corridor. To my great relief, my name was not in the rotation to clean the showers of stray hairs nor scrub the
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