toilets. Again I felt the cleaners actually employed to clean Sandhurst got off very lightly.
One morning, as I swept the ruddy red linoleum flooring with a wooden broom, forming small piles of mud and dust before the London stock market had even opened, I thought how drastically different my life had become. I was waking even earlier now than when I had worked in London. I was certainly getting shouted at more. And my appearance had transformed too. My City friends would barely recognize my uniformed self. Former chic shoes had given way to ogreish boots, while City fashions had been replaced with unshapely combats and my hair was now scraped tightly back and wound away. After just a few weeks I realized that the army was already changing me.
*
My room in Old College was a high-ceilinged modest abode, in contrast with the grand opulence of the staterooms to the front of the College. Devoid of character and individuality, it was simply furnished with a wardrobe, a bare desk, a chest of drawers and bookshelves empty except for a Bible. A heavy white porcelain sink hung from the wall below a mirror and a single tall window filled the room with winter light. The floor was covered with dark-red bristly carpet tiles and the cream walls remained unfurnished apart from a small grey lockable safe in which I hid the contraband chocolate my grandmother sent me.
Prison cells contain more.
For an inspection, the room’s contents had to be displayed according to a prescribed layout. Everything hung in the wardrobe in a specific order, shoes aligned exactly and drawers were progressively pulled out in a stepped manner, revealing a cascading sequence of T-shirts, jumpers and ‘smiling socks’ (folded with the bundle-fold facing up in a smile rather than sadly downwards, as I felt). We were allowed a few basic personal belongings: a radio that had to be tuned to BBC Radio 4, a hairbrush and minimal toiletries. Every item of clothing had to be meticulously ironed, with creases down the sleeves and trouser legs and folded garments were to be precisely to the dimensions of A4 paper. All surfaces had to be clean, polished and dust free, the carpet vacuumed, the mirror shining without blemish and the sink dry and spotless. The crates of cleaning products I had brought with me were soon put to good use.
For an inspection issued items of military kit were displayed on the shelves including mess tins, cutlery, water bottles and magazines; 5 along with a set of unused ‘show home’ toiletries as a squeezed toothpaste tube or used toothbrush were fallible offences. On the bed would be the white Number One ‘Blues’ Dress 6 belt with its polished brass buckle, navy-blue and red Blues forage cap (a magnet for dust) and shiny black Blues shoes. All displayed for scrutiny.
Hours of preparation were required for the inspection, causing us to work late into the night ironing and folding each item of clothing with great care, polishing mess tins, brass buckles, shoes and anything else that could be forced to shine, while the room was cleansed of dust. The following morning after breakfast there would then be a frenzy of activity in the moments before the inspection began, adding final touches and titivating to perfection. A quick blast of furniture polish and flurry with a yellow duster, a wipe down and dry of the sink, fix the window open to the specified four-inch gap and plump pillows: it was like preparing a potential medal-winning garden for the Judges’ Committee at the Chelsea Flower Show.
Then, like a lion spotted on the prairie, we’d all stop what we were doing and scurry into position at SSgt Cox’s arrival, standing ‘at ease’ outside our rooms. The whole inspection was carefully stage-managed and as she burst into the corridor we all ‘braced up’, springing to attention as she approached our individual rooms and announcing name, rank and army number (which I was still learning and would become terribly tongue-tied with
One morning, as I swept the ruddy red linoleum flooring with a wooden broom, forming small piles of mud and dust before the London stock market had even opened, I thought how drastically different my life had become. I was waking even earlier now than when I had worked in London. I was certainly getting shouted at more. And my appearance had transformed too. My City friends would barely recognize my uniformed self. Former chic shoes had given way to ogreish boots, while City fashions had been replaced with unshapely combats and my hair was now scraped tightly back and wound away. After just a few weeks I realized that the army was already changing me.
*
My room in Old College was a high-ceilinged modest abode, in contrast with the grand opulence of the staterooms to the front of the College. Devoid of character and individuality, it was simply furnished with a wardrobe, a bare desk, a chest of drawers and bookshelves empty except for a Bible. A heavy white porcelain sink hung from the wall below a mirror and a single tall window filled the room with winter light. The floor was covered with dark-red bristly carpet tiles and the cream walls remained unfurnished apart from a small grey lockable safe in which I hid the contraband chocolate my grandmother sent me.
Prison cells contain more.
For an inspection, the room’s contents had to be displayed according to a prescribed layout. Everything hung in the wardrobe in a specific order, shoes aligned exactly and drawers were progressively pulled out in a stepped manner, revealing a cascading sequence of T-shirts, jumpers and ‘smiling socks’ (folded with the bundle-fold facing up in a smile rather than sadly downwards, as I felt). We were allowed a few basic personal belongings: a radio that had to be tuned to BBC Radio 4, a hairbrush and minimal toiletries. Every item of clothing had to be meticulously ironed, with creases down the sleeves and trouser legs and folded garments were to be precisely to the dimensions of A4 paper. All surfaces had to be clean, polished and dust free, the carpet vacuumed, the mirror shining without blemish and the sink dry and spotless. The crates of cleaning products I had brought with me were soon put to good use.
For an inspection issued items of military kit were displayed on the shelves including mess tins, cutlery, water bottles and magazines; 5 along with a set of unused ‘show home’ toiletries as a squeezed toothpaste tube or used toothbrush were fallible offences. On the bed would be the white Number One ‘Blues’ Dress 6 belt with its polished brass buckle, navy-blue and red Blues forage cap (a magnet for dust) and shiny black Blues shoes. All displayed for scrutiny.
Hours of preparation were required for the inspection, causing us to work late into the night ironing and folding each item of clothing with great care, polishing mess tins, brass buckles, shoes and anything else that could be forced to shine, while the room was cleansed of dust. The following morning after breakfast there would then be a frenzy of activity in the moments before the inspection began, adding final touches and titivating to perfection. A quick blast of furniture polish and flurry with a yellow duster, a wipe down and dry of the sink, fix the window open to the specified four-inch gap and plump pillows: it was like preparing a potential medal-winning garden for the Judges’ Committee at the Chelsea Flower Show.
Then, like a lion spotted on the prairie, we’d all stop what we were doing and scurry into position at SSgt Cox’s arrival, standing ‘at ease’ outside our rooms. The whole inspection was carefully stage-managed and as she burst into the corridor we all ‘braced up’, springing to attention as she approached our individual rooms and announcing name, rank and army number (which I was still learning and would become terribly tongue-tied with
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