Monday
Today was the start of a week long Military Training for me as I am in the senior
term at the School and am due to pass out in the summer.
Sgt Andrew, part of the Military Training Team, viewed all our field kit at
first thing in the morning, then we were to go to the armoury at 1300 to draw
out our weapons, the SA80 rifle. The afternoon consisted of weapons drills revision
as we had not touched the rifles since Basic Training - over 2 years ago! After
everyone proved that they could still handle a weapon safely, we were thinned
out for the evening.
Tuesday
It was off to Longmoor today for a day on the ranges. It was very windy so shooting
was made difficult, but we managed to get a grouping, then practised hitting
the targets from 100m, 200m and 300m.
On return to HMS Nelson, some of us attended the orchestra rehearsal over at
the school. Much to our surprise the boss, Major Best, revealed he had found
out our drafts and said we could find them out after the rehearsal. So an hour
and a half later we were all crammed into his office expectantly. I found out
I was going to Dartmouth Band at the Britannia Royal Naval College, with Musn
'Scotty' Burton.
Wednesday
Off to the ranges again today, but this time it was for our APWT weapons test,
we needed to get 33 out of 60 and we all passed!
On return to Portsmouth we were given the afternoon to prepare our kit for the
field for the next day.
Thursday
This morning we all had to travel over to HMS Excellent to go in the gas chambers.
Our respirators had to be checked and then we entered the chamber, where we
had to change canisters and recite a poem off the wall. Unfortunately we all
stank of CS gas for the rest of the afternoon, at least we were only in the
field. When we had made ourselves some scran and set up our ponchos at Longmoor,
we had to do a Night NAVEX (map reading in the dark!). After we had worked out
our bearings, off we went. Myself and Musn King only got lost (sorry, I mean
directionally challenged) due to the helpful directions of Musn Burton and Musn
Fothergill. Thanks for that guys!
Once everyone was back, we all had a hot dog, which the training team had magiced
up, then it was beddy-byes for us. Luckily we only had one sentry duty each
during the night, which was a wandering patrol - but it was so windy, it was
hard to sleep anyway!
Friday
0800 and we were all packed up and ready to get out of there, unfortunately
the Training Team were a bit stubborn about getting out of bed. Once they were
all up, we took their tent down and loaded up the box wagon. It was only as
we were about to leave that Sgt Allan discovered the van wouldn't start, so
it was time for us all to push. Unfortunately the ground was so uneven that
didn't work. We tried pushing it with the jeep with logs in between the two
vehicles, we tried pulling it with the jeep using weapons slings as a tow rope,
and eventually using our combined forces we managed to get it on the road and
push started it. All that was left to do now was to walk all the way back to
Longmoor Camp to get the coach back to Nelson.
On returning, we cleaned our weapons and returned them to the armoury, after
which I retired to bed, for the whole of the afternoon. It had been a tiring
week!
Saturday & Sunday
The weekend was spent sorting out my field kit, making sure it was clean, doing
my washing and doing what bandies do .... practising. After having a good night
out on Saturday, myself and Musn Morgan decided to put right the bad work and
went swimming, after which we treated ourselves to a little retail therapy and
a ride in the countryside... to find a nice pub.